Sammy Story 14: Learning to Play

M sent two pathetic looking “bunnies” with us when Sammy came to be with us. They were his favourites. The purple one was for sleeping with. The white and turquoise one was to beat on and chew. It had lost most of its stuffing and looked ready to fall apart.
It took a long time for Sammy to bring it out of his basket. Again, the best time was at night when it was dark, with Theo out of sight.

Does anyone else find it so sad that a dog, almost three years old does not know how to play? I would throw his stuffed bunny for him, and he would cock his head and look at me, wondering, “What fresh hell is this?”
But finally, he caught on that if he brought it to me, I would throw it for him and he could bring it back again, and we could do this over and over, and it was actually fun!
I bought him some little beanie-baby toys to add to his repertoire; but he ignored them. I put them in his basket and a day or so later, I found them outisde his basket, thank you very much. I left them there and weeks later, one by one, he put them back in his basket, and would actually play fetch with them as well. But they were still second fiddle to that woe-begone pile of rags–his favourite bunny.