It all started so innocently... about a year ago, I purchased a popular dog toy known as a Jolly Ball Teaser Ball. These toys are made to be almost indestructible (always a good thing with Remi and Noelle around) and they've received rave reviews from dog owners across the world. The Teaser Ball is a ball within a ball. The inner ball causes it to wobble and makes pushing the toy around great fun. Last night it caught the attention of my foster puppy Hobbes. I never thought something named a Jolly Ball could be anything but, well, jolly. However Hobbes quickly demonstrated the inherent danger in being a small puppy with too much curiousity and not enough common sense, and this was the result:
Oh sure, you think its funny.... I did at first too! Until I tried to get it off. I pulled. I tugged. I squeezed his head into funny shapes, with no luck. He was stuck.
I took a brief break to snap a picture and call a friend for advice. What should I do? Try some soap for lubrication? He was calm and didn't appear to be in pain, but if I started rubbing soap all over his head, he'd probably freak out. The plastic outer ball really is indestructible - it also doesn't bend or flex at all. My friend didn't answer her phone, so I was on my own. Back to pulling... and tugging... and pulling some more. I tried holding the ball still and letting him pull himself out, with no luck. I tried wiggling it around in a circle, with no luck. I tried pulling his ears through first, with no luck. The whole time he just stood there quietly, like this:
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Finally, after some more pulling and tugging and wondering how in the heck he ever got his head in there in the first place, I got him out. And he went right over to another dog toy and started playing. I am glad to report he was fine and has no physical or emotional trauma from this event. Too bad his foster mom can't say the same!
2 comments:
Holy cow, poor little guy! That had to be scary, for pooch and human alike! One of my cats was playing with his big brother through the crack of the bedroom door and got his little toe & claw stuck in the hinge. The worst part was that the more I tried to wiggle it free, the worse it got stuck and squeezed on his paw. Finally, after lots of Pam cooking spray and help from my neighbor (boy did he think I was nuts), we were finally able to free kitty's toe from the big, bad door. He was fine within 5 mins, but it took me 2 days to calm down!
At first I thought this was a joke, until I kept reading and saw the pictures. Poor Hobbes is probably rethinking the name "Jolly Ball". These toys should be renamed "Balls of Horror". Oh wait, I think that's a movie I once saw.
Post a Comment