Uh, no, not that.  That’s not tough on toys.

This, however, is tough on toys.

That’s Tempus, the borderjack.  Or as we like to call him “RUN!  RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!”  Tempus leans a little to the crazy side of things.  And at agility class, Tempus requires some kind of toy distraction to keep him from going postal, biting the heads off chickens, and sacrificing newborns to some dark overlord.  And from screaming at top volume.  This toy must be tugged with endlessly, or nobody can hear themselves think, plus he might just redirect his insanity on an innocent bystander.

The problem is, no toy can outlast Tempus.  And there have been, believe me, MANY toys.  Today I did a search for “super tough tug toys for dogs” and came up with a whole bunch of images of toys I have seen this 20lb dog demolish in mere minutes.  In fact, last night’s toy lasted (we timed it, with a stop watch) one minute and 15 seconds.  He decapitated it.

Got any ideas to stump the borderjack?  The only thing that works somewhat reliable is a Kong-tube-on-a-rope (I dunno what they’re really called) but he will eventually peel the rubber off that thing like a banana.  It’s surreal!

In other news, there is an evil force lurking on my farm.  It has slithered up from the depths of Hell (no, it isn’t Tempus) and it eats tails.

Bryce has developed a keen interest in taking out my other dogs by their hindmost appendage.  He waits until they go whipping by and he lunges out rattlesnake fast to grab a tail in his mouth and snap-the-whip the poor dog off its feet.  He has received multiple beat-downs for this behaviour from a variety of canine sources, but refuses to be deterred.  I am thinking the only thing that will cure him of this bad habit is to send him to live with several ill-tempered Australian Shepherds for a few days.

On Wednesday, he grabbed Spring by her bum handle and tossed her in the air.  She got up snapping like a pissed off crocodile and sent him running … but she got up on three legs.  She tri-podded back to me and put her front legs in the air and said “Mommy.”

I haz an owie.

I crated her off to work with me, with visions of ACL tears dancing in my head.  By noon she had only the slightest hitch in her giddyup.  By dinner time she was right as rain.  She even went to agility class last night, where she successfully weaved 12 poles multiple times and ran a pretty fast standard course. Good girlie!

Feeling smug that we had skirted disaster, I was therefore totally stymied when Dexter came in from his morning potty break on three legs.  Holding one hindleg up in the air.

I. Could not. BELIEVE. this could happen twice.  Seriously?  I lamented to Auntie Fiona today that people were going to start thinking I suffered from Munchausen-By-Proxy-Dogs.  She cheerfully suggested I do blog post titled “If you don’t love me, one of my dogs will die.”  Because Fiona is unhelpful.

I kinda held out until noon to see if the magical cure that put all four of Spring’s legs back on the earth would work for Dexter as well, but alas, he continued to tripod throughout the day.  I was pretty sure the universe was punishing me for crying wolf with Spring and that this time, Dexter’s ACL was in a thousand pieces dancing around inside his knee chanting “take that bee-otch.”

But as time went on, I began to feel that it was not his knee that was bothering him, but rather his foot.  So we toddled off to the vet clinic where the vet tugged on his toes and made him cry.  She declared his knees “fantastic” and agreed that is was an issue with his toe. A couple x-rays later and it turns out Dexter has hyperextended the fourth digit (in laymens’ terms this means the dumb ass f*cked up his middle toe) and there might be even be the slightest of fractures.

OH MY GOD!!  THAT SOUNDS AWFUL!!  WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT THIS?

“Tape ‘em together” she said and sent us on our way.  If I keep him quiet for a few days and keep his toes stabilized with some vet wra for a couple of weeks, he should be good as new in time for Regionals.  Of course, with no time to practice, just to ensure our performance is complete tomfoolery.

Dog feet HATE The Food Lady.  And there is no small irony in the fact that Mr. Woo has never had a foot injury, despite the things that happen to HIS feet.

*sigh* (I seem do this a lot lately).

“You never take photos of Piper,” Dave says, “How come poor Piper’s never featured on the blog?”

THAT’s why, Dave!!!!