The Adventures of Beaver-Dog

It's entirely possible that the puppy we adopted isn't a puppy after all.  She may well be some kind of puppy-beaver or dog-beaver hybrid.  This can't be proven yet, it's still in the hypothesis stage, somewhere between "existence of Sasquatch" and "climate change" on the continuum of settled science.  

Puppy is the first puppy I've ever had, as the other dogs we have (Tito and Shaak Ti) were all acquired after the initial spazzy pure puppy phase.  Being that my sister is more experienced with raising puppies, I'll occasionally call and ask her advice, or more often ask her "Uhhh I saw the puppy doing (blank) today, is this normal?"  So it didn't totally cause my sister any alarm when I called the other day to inquire of her "How much wood is it OK for a dog to eat?"

You see, chewing on and then consuming wood is one of the puppy's favorite activities.  Favorite Activities.  I can't highlight or special font this enough, she really, really loves chewing and eating wood.  On occasion there will be little piles of wet mulch where she has just enjoyed chewing the wood, but more often than not, the wood is going all the way through her system.  Trust me, I know, you don't want me to explain how I know, just accept that I know.     

Most days puppy spends hours outside, nosing through the woodpile, gnawing and stripping bark off the bigger pieces of wood, and dragging the manageable ones around the yard to a sunny spot on the grass, and eating them.  Like having a wood picnic.  Since she's not tall enough to reach the top of the woodpile, nor woodpile savvy enough to realize the potential for disaster, she occasionally causes woodpile avalanches.  I'm always afraid that one of her self inflicted woodpile avalanches is going to cause a serious bonk on the noggin and lead to an injury, but oh well, it's a risk we'll take. 

I'm not sure what to attribute this woodpile love too, and since honestly it's 1) a really cheap toy and 2) much better than chewing on furniture/shoes/other household goods/people, I can't complain. Still it is a bit odd.  Maybe it's just a phase...

Happy as a clam, or more accurately, happy as a beaver-dog.