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All the World's a PlaypenMay 07, 2008 From my desk I can see a translucent blue jack with a sturdy yellow and red cord threaded through it, a well-chewed rawhide braid, a green rubber ball with spikes (how to describe this so it doesn't sound lethal? It looks like an undersea creature, and it squeaks), two squeaky stuffed animals, several tennis balls, a piece of bubble wrap, an empty Amstel Light box (don't worry, I didn't drink the beer), a nearly threadbare white athletic sock with a tennis ball in the toe, and a small rawhide football. Oh yeah, and a blue kazoo on the far side of the water dish. Travvy appropriated that from a bottom shelf, and since it seems sturdy and I can't remember when I last blew it, I let him have it. Travvy is currently gnawing on the rawhide football, which I just found in a LeRoux bag with two tennis balls. The bag, then full of tennis balls, was given to Rhodry several moves ago, ca. 2000, by someone who frequented the tennis center at the airport. The football must have come later but I've no idea where or when or from whom. The two paragraphs above were interrupted three times, once for a game of hide-and-seek around the cars outside, followed by a walk down the path by the compost bins and the garden to the dirt road; once to play tug-of-war with the blue jack; and once to move several toys to the deck so Travvy could play outside. A kiddie gate blocks the stairs -- Trav has become a self-assured stair climber in the last week, but yesterday was the first day he went down the stairs all by himself. I'm pretty sure he can't fit between the posts that hold up the deck railing, but I keep an eye out just in case. Already he likes to sit out there and watch the world go by. Rhodry did too. He'd lie with his jaw resting on the bottom rail. My neighbors said Rhodry was watching TV. Since all the world's a playpen, Travvy thinks everything contained therein is a prospective toy. My job is to continually reinforce what is and what isn't. Cardboard box, yes. Wooden magazine rack, no. Bubble wrap, yes. Paddock boots, no. This couldn't possibly make sense in the puppy worldview, but it's amazing how quickly Trav catches on. Or maybe not so amazing, because I'm always ready and able to substitute a toy for a not-toy, or to clap my hands sharply to distract him. Rhodry caught on quickly too, which was good because then, as now, I lived in a small place that was unpuppyproofable. His puppy teeth marks remain on the legs of the pine coffee table, and Travvy's will live on on the bottom shelf of the magazine rack my grandmother made, but that's OK. When Trav gets restless, it's time for me to stop working and play. Or we go for a walk. The wider world is full of toys: cars to hide behind, planks to walk across, low stone walls and fallen limbs to clamber over, roots sticking up out of the ground and ready to be wrestled with. My job out there is to discourage digging, and chewing of plants. Malamutes are renowned for their digging skills, and Travvy has already made several attempts to dig in the bluestone driveway. My neighbors' lawn includes several mulched sections of flowers and shrubbery, not to mention the kids' play area, improvised with mostly scavenged materials by their extremely handy dad. 'Nuff said. No digging. So far Trav is a pretty easy puppy, but with an impish streak -- like Rhodry on both counts. I don't recall Rhodry being such a drama queen, however. Leaving the barn last night, I put a handful of cat kibble down on the hayloft steps; the big food bowl spends the night in the (closed) grain room, to protect it from the feral cat who's roamed the area for several years, not to mention other marauders. Travvy had already figured out that I do this, and that cat kibble tastes pretty good. Last night he wouldn't come away from it and I didn't have a leash with me, so I took him by the collar and tugged. He tried to bite me. I said NO, whereupon he went limp on his back. I tugged some more. He started screeching as if he were being tortured -- like a three-year-old throwing a tantrum at the grocery store. Fortunately no one was alarmed, and even more fortunately I weigh about ten times more than he does. He may grow up to be a "pulling fool" like his parents, but for now I can pull harder.
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