Now You’re Talking

From Writer Unboxed: Canine Enhancement of the Writing Life

These past weeks together have reminded me of the benefits of having canine companionship for my writing journey. The list is long but includes:

Dogs are the antidote to the sort of loneliness that can accompany the writing life.Dogs strictly enforce a routine, which is at the core of a productive writing discipline.Part of that routine includes getting their writer outdoors and walking. In nature if possible, where the ideas tend to flow and flourish.Dogs are sympathetic friends. When others can’t be bothered to care about a writerly low or failing, most dogs will sense your mood and seek to lift your spirits.Dogs won’t allow you to become too self-important. Nothing that happens in writing or publishing–good or bad–is more serious than a play session with the newest toy in the house.

All true! Related: The Stages of Lambchop

Happy puppy with new Lambchop

Sad puppy with destroyed Lambchop

Lambchop re-stuffed with fluff plus an empty water bottle, for that fun crunchiness

This is a different Lambchop post-destruction, resurrected as half a Lambchop.

These days, I add three or so Lambchops to the order every time I get petfood from Chewy. Also eighteen extra squeakers.

Would you like to guess how long it takes Joy to extract and chew up all five of the squeakers that come in a Lambchop toy? Now that she knows what she’s doing, less than 24 hours. I try to remember to take the toy away from her after the first frenzy of destruction so she can enjoy destroying it for several days instead of just one day. Once she’s torn it up, I stitch it back together , each time in a slightly different Frankensteinian way depending on just what’s left of the original toy.

We do have other toys around, which Joy also destroys in a disconsolate fashion after I throw away the useless remnants of the latest Lambchop.

I figure she’ll have outgrown destroying Lambchop toys in a few years, so she may as well have her share of fun destruction while she’s young enough to really enjoy it.

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