Sophie likes to carry things around. The other dogs don’t really let her have anything for very long, or her attention span fails her and that’s why the yard is full of socks.
But this morning as I was getting ready for work, I saw she had something in her mouth and made her drop it in case it was one of her less appropriate selections like my underwear or a dead bird. What she had, though, was a month-old packet of Fear Factor Mystery Candy, which we had at our Halloween party and a couple must have gotten dropped on the ground. It was hardly a mystery, by the way: several of us opened packets to find the same unidentifiable brown-black gummyblob that was gross-flavored only in the sense that it was not any recognizable flavor.
Anyway, Sophie has now been carrying around this packet of candy off and on for 14 hours. She won’t eat it, which must be a testament to its grossness since she eats dead birds and cat shit with relish (not literal relish, but she totally would if she had some), but she is so damn proud of her little prize. She lost it for a while in the yellow and black leaves on the patio, but I saw her find it and take it for a victory lap around the house just a little while ago. Gir and Roxy have taken it from her a couple of times just to push her around, neither of them actually wants it, but their occasional interest just increases its value for Sophie.
My mom asked what kinds of toys the dogs wanted for Christmas, and if Sophie liked the big heavy indestructible toys the other dogs play with, and I said no, she has such a little mouth, all she really wants are things she can carry around that the big dogs won’t destroy (note: Sophie has now put her candy in the middle of the floor and is dancing around it, occasionally throwing it across the room, I guess to make it dance back). I guess I’ll just tell her to find us several more bags of Mystery Candy for the poor kid to play with.