Having a Ball

I’ve avoided writing about my paddle-pawed pandemic puppy for the first few days of the March Challenge, but I’m temporarily out of other ideas, so I have to resort to a canine slice.

Farley came to us on March 14, 2020, just a day after our schools shut down due to that virus.  We were a bit ahead of the parade of puppy adoptions, having found Farley through a rescue organization when the pandemic had yet to reach our coast.  He’s gotten an inordinate amount of attention, both directly and in my writing over the past two years.  He believes that it is all deserved.

Farley is officially a mutt, but people seem to be fascinated by his looks.  When we take him for longer walks on Saturdays and Sundays, it’s an unusual day if someone doesn’t roll down a car window and shout some sort of compliment at him.  We imagine that Farley takes all this in stride, understanding that he is striking and that humans exist mostly to adore him.  We, his humans, try not to be offended that we are merely his non-notable attendants.

When they’re not showering praise on His Handsomeness, the adoring onlookers are usually guessing his breed.  If his breed were based on crowd-sourcing, he’d be a Great Dane.  Nancy started telling people he was a Lesser Dane, since he didn’t quite have the full gigantitude of a Great one.  We finally had him DNA tested, and the results showed that he was part Lab, part Pit Bull (the dog, not the performer), and part Great Pyrenees.  He was also 5 percent Super Mutt.  There was no sign of anything Danish (though Farley pointed out that there was Greatness in that Pyrenees part).  

That was a long preamble to the point of this slice, which is that Farley has an incredible collection of toys.  This is partly because Nancy (my wife) looks for any occasion to give him a toy (Birthday, Christmas Day, Valentine’s Day, Gotcha Day, Labor Day, Weekday, etc.).  Also, we discovered early on that Farley is really good at finding toys.  He regularly unearths some toy from one of our previous dogs, from some previous resident’s dog, from the Jurassic period.  He galumphs out of the ivy in the corner of our yard and presents his latest find at our feet.  Fortunately he only hunts for non-living things. 

In most cases, he destroys his toys fairly quickly.  He’s an aggressive chewer and destuffer. 

I said most cases.

For his birthday this year (November 28, if you’re wondering), he received the Purple Ball.  It is round like a ball, has two handles and two small holes on its outer surface.  Inside, it has a squeaker that is powered by the two holes on the outer surface.  Squeeze the ball and you get sound. Usually Farley performs an immediate squeakectomy  on any toy like this.  He has had the Purple Ball for three-and-a-half months, or 66 days, or approximately 1584 hours, depending on how tedious you are finding that squeaking sound.  He has yet to remove the squeaker.  In fact, he greatly enjoys having the purple ball in his mouth and using his powerful (pit bull) jaws to make the squeaker reach a volume that would be gently described as #$%$@#%ing annoying.  We think that purple ball has given Farley a voice that communicates more than the mere bark.  He is able to say things like, “Hey, I can talk!” or “Hey, you lazy humans, you haven’t played with your pandemic puppy in the last two minutes.”  Or the more direct (and louder),   “Get off your butt and play!”   He generally employs his Purple Ball squeak-speaking device anywhere from 10 to 15 times a day.  Sometimes it is during a tense moment in Succession.  “Kendall, I really think we should–SQUEEEAK.”  Wait, what did he say?

Other times it might be during a phone call.  “Excuse me, Mom, I have to go play Purple Ball with Farley.  Apparently it’s an emergency.”

I didn’t mention that Purple Ball is meant as an interactive toy.  Farley likes nothing better than a good game of tug of war.  He weighs 95 pounds and has the aforementioned “jaws of life” power, so tug of war is a game at which he excels…almost as much as keepaway.  It generally goes like this:  SQUEAK (times 200), followed by, “Okay Farley, we’ll play with you,”  followed by, “If you won’t let me grab the handle, I can’t really play tug of war,” followed by, SQUEAK (times 50), followed by, “I guess I’ll walk away, now,” at which point he appears by our side ready for the war, and subsequent victory.  

I’d love to make the toy disappear, but Farley loves it so much that I can’t bear to take it from him.  Plus, he’d probably find it wherever we hid it.

So, I’m including a picture here as a public service in case you were tempted to buy this indestructible toy at your local pet store.  It may also be sold at any store that sells drum sets, violins, clarinets, and other devices intended to torture the ears of housemates..

I’m ready to play.

Squeak?!

• Slice of Life