Butters Loves Technology Too!

We spent a lot of time trying to figure out what breed of dog would work well with our family.  We took all those on-line tests, and they all came out the same.  We were a family well suited for a loyal, lazy dog.  Every test we took told us we should consider, nay, needed, a bull dog. 

Now, these loyal and lovable canines are not without their drawbacks.  Their particular drawbacks are very plainly stated on every website out there.  Every.  Single.  Site.  So, we had to ask ourselves the following questions:

1)  How bad can dog farts be?

2)  Is a little dog snoring really that annoying?

3)  Sure, they’re a "mouthy breed", but how hard is it to make sure the dog has a chew toy?

And as of yesterday, I know the answer to all three of the above questions.

Dog farts can be excruciating.  They can make your eyes water.  They can make you drive around with ALL the car windows rolled down, while it’s snowing.  They can make pre-pubescent boys (who find farting one of the funniest things on the planet) leave a room.  Butters’ farts could be used in chemical warfare.

Her snoring, though, doesn’t really bother me much as for the past 15 years I’ve been sleeping with a dude who snores .  I don’t really even hear it any more.  She does snore loud enough to hear from anywhere on the same floor of the house.  Her snoring is so loud, in fact, that it wakes Dave up.  Sometimes, and this is priceless, he sleeps on the guest bed because of the dog’s snoring.

These two thing, however, pale in comparison to the whole mouthiness issue.  Pay heed, people!  Because now I can answer question 3 from above;  it’s damn near impossible to make sure the dog has an acceptable chewie all the time.  The key here is acceptable.  And not acceptable to me, but acceptable to the dog.  This is a lot harder than it sounds.

Here’s a list of things the dog has chewed already this morning:  a raw hide (rejected), a goo filled bone (also rejected),both of my gardening clogs (taken away), and what used to be the cat food scoop.  Here’s Butters loving the remains of the scoop:

In the span of 30 minutes, she completely destroyed this cup.  I let her, and before you all jump all over me, I understand that it’s probably toxic plastic and not a sanctioned dog toy (she patently rejects rubber dog toys).  But you people have to realize what this dog has consumed, and suffered no ill effects.  Her favorite find is pencils, which with 4 kids leaving them around, she gets at least one pencil every other day.  She eats everything except the metal part that hold the eraser.  She also appears to love anything made by Lego;  she’ll eat any Lego piece she finds laying around, but especially likes bionicles. 

She LOVES to chew plastic.  It makes her supremely happy.  Here’s another photo of her having a go at that cat food scoop.  Check out the wonky eye.  She was so happy her eyes were rolling back in her head.

Want to know what else is made out of plastic?  The two week old Nintendo DS that the 6 year old has been saving his money for over a year to purchase.  Lots of lovable and tasty plastic on a DS.

Want to know what else is made out of plastic that the dog finds really, really tasty and seems to prefer over all else?

That’s right.  The replacement DS.  Apparently, just as tasty as the first one.  Clearly, Butters has a thing for the newer technologies.  (She has never, ever tried to eat the 4 year old Gameboy.)This morning, I decided to do a side by side taste test.  A canine Pepsi challenge, if you will.  There she was happily devouring that yellow cup with her saggy little eyes rolling around in her head, and I offered up the more mangled of the two Nintendos.

She clearly prefers the bite size electronics.

I am sure at some point I will find this ,the "Nintendo episode", funny.  Not so much right now though.  Also, as of this morning, I stopped looking for the DVD remote that’s been missing for a week.  I’m certain that Butters ate the entire thing, batteries and all, and suffered not.