When Isabella was a baby and i first brought her home, her breeder sent her off with a small mint-colored stuffed squeaky bear. We named him “Minty.” He immediately became Izzie’s favorite toy.
Before Isabella started to fill into her adult body, her baby bark was very shrill and could be heard through the whole house. My dad was the most irritated of all and would bark back at Izzie and tell her to stop.
Shamed, but not to be outdone, Izzie would grab Minty in her mouth and instead of barking, would squeeze Minty repeatedly from under the kitchen table. While we ate dinner all we heard was… “squeak squeak squeak squeak… squeak squeak!”
Unamused, but defeated, my father decided this irritation was better than broken ear drums.
The friendship lasted for months until Izzie had figured out how to rip the innards from Minty’s bowels and was sad to realize that he no longer squeaked. Being the good mommy I am, I went a-searching on the intar-webs and found a store online that sold these silly squeaker toys for under a dollar each. Not only that, but for each one you bought you got one for free.
Suffice it to say, I now have a large collection of “Mintys” for Izzie to play with.
Every few months she’ll get bored with just squeaking the damn thing and decides it’s time to play doctor. She’ll rip him apart and pull all the stuffing out and rip each stitch out like a trained professional.
Eventually, for the safety of her stomach (and my carpets) I’ll take his corpse and dispose of him in the nearest trash receptacle. I’ll wait a week or so later again, and then I am the hero once more when I “resurrect” Minty, all well and unscathed, for Izzie to squeak once more.
She runs down the hallway squeaking and giddy, gets to the bedroom and throws Minty into the air and catches him only to quickly tear into him and rip his poor little ear off. And the cycle continues…
