A year ago, when we adopted Lucy, we were warned that she was a sock thief. We even have a great picture of her with one of the foster mom’s socks in her mouth. Absolutely adorable, except no one mentioned how hard it would be to get that away from her. Even with the two of us working together, relieving her of a sock can be a herculean task. She has stubby legs. How can she move that fast?
But we have been super cautious over this last year. A few times we’ve caught her slinking out of our closet with a sock – like we wouldn’t notice – and heading for the doggie door. Last Thanksgiving, she even managed to grab one of my father-in-law’s. We, of course, know to keep the closet door closed.
Then last weekend, for some reason, I decided to just give her one. I was doing laundry (exciting gay agenda stuff, I know!) and noticed one of my ankle socks had a hole in the end. Normally that just goes right in the bin, but I thought I’d hand it to her and see what she did. Talk about being confused – staring at me like I was tricking her into something. Is there a pill in it? But she took it, and she hasn’t looked back since.
She also hasn’t spent much time this last week playing with any of her other toys. Usually, when we get her a stuffed squeaky toy, she dives right in and starts pulling stuffing out as fast as she can. Basically, a bloodbath in the living room except it’s all fluff. We decided once to replace her gingerbread man after she pulled the eyes off and started tugging stuffing out of the openings. Very disturbing to have that staring at you when you turn on the light. Especially when she started repeating the process with the new one.
Yikes!
Unfortunately, they’ve all been abandoned. Or mostly abandoned. If she’s in the mood to chase something, she’ll bring one over for me to throw. Apparently, you can’t get the same speed and distance with a sock. And we all know it’s not any fun if you can’t barrel down the hallway as fast as possible before running into the wall. Then doing it again and again.
But for those few times, the poor, mangled stuffed animals have laid there, probably wondering why no one loves them anymore. Wondering how they could have been so easily tossed aside, and for a sock no less. At the same time, though, enjoying the reprieve.
And don’t expect Snickers to play with them. He’s too dignified for that, unless he wants to keep Lucy from getting them. I am a little surprised he hasn’t tried to take the sock. But we all know he’s more of an underwear man.
I’m not sure how long this will last. Given her tendency to destroy her toys, I thought the hole in the end would be too tempting. Yet I haven’t come home in the evening to find little bits of sock scattered across the house. It’s still in one piece, at least for now. And she knows we have plenty of socks left in the closet. James caught her sniffing around the other night while he was getting ready for bed.
Oops!