Poor Little Raccoon

Way back when Dave and I had Panda, we picked up one of those stuffing-less squeak toys that had like 6 squeakers in it (one in the head, one in the tail, and one in each leg) thinking she'd love it.  But the thing with stuffing-less toys is that the dog can't just poke at it and make the squeaker go, like Panda loved to do with her Lovebug.  So the toy went unused by Panda.

Then we got Taco and he was all "Dude, this thing's as big as me.  And I'm afraid of squeakers.  And I'm all about getting the stuffing out of these things.  This toy sucks."  So back in the dog supply bag it went.

And Lizzie attitude about the whole thing was "I don't do toys.  I'm just going to lay her and drool."  So still the raccoon sat waiting for someone to play with it.

But we knew Mia was into squeak toys, so last night I dug the raccoon out of the bag, hoping she might be interested.  Interested doesn't quite begin to describe it.  She jumped around once she saw it and tried her best to get it out of my hand.  When she calmed I let her have it and she was in heaven.  She squeaked away, chewing the raccoon's head and tail, tossing him up in the air, giving him a good shake (to make sure he was dead) and carried him all around.

While Dave and I ate dinner, she took the raccoon into her crate and began the process of trying to pull off his tail.  When she was bored with that, she worked on his head.  I couldn't resist, so I pulled out the camera.

Besides the eye becoming a snack, she also managed to pull the squeaker out of his head (along with the little bit of stuffing that was in there).  I successfully swiped the squeaker without her realizing--the last thing we needed was a trip to the animal ER for a squeaker removal.  At least the eyeball should "come out" some time today.  (On a side note, when Dave picked up Mia, he was told that earlier that day she had eaten some crayons.  Sure enough, that afternoon she pooped a rainbow.)

After cleaning up all the detached (and available) raccoon parts, Mia spent the rest of the night destroying him a little at a time.  Eventually she did get his tail off.  Oh the humanity.

So now she had a faceless, tailless raccoon with 33% less squeakers.  I think Dave and I need to invest in some stronger squeak toys.