The Bones of the Story
It is a truth not generally acknowledged that bones for dogs have gone out of style.
For some reason, a bunch of party poopers have convinced dog owners that bones and dogs are not a good mix.
I mean.
What happier image than that of a dog capering off with a bone between his jaws, looking forward to hours of contented gnawing or the joys of digging and burying said bone.
Not today. At best they hand you a poor imitation made of some sort of hide, or pathetic chew sticks which disappear in an instant.
What rot.
My attendants have sometimes talked about this fascinating topic and incidentally discovered that there are bones and bones. Some bones, for example knee bones, can be okay for dogs to chew on, because they don't splinter.
I have to be grateful to my attendants, because I can tell they truly care. One day they came home from the butcher looking very pleased with themselves.
When they produced two pieces of knee bone my eyes nearly popped out of my head. I promptly claimed one for myself and went to the door, asking to be let outside so that I could dig and bury it in a suitable location.
Not so my companion Clio. She sat down, held the bone between her front paws and began to gnaw, and gnaw, and gnaw, for so long I thought she'd forgotten how to stop.
That knee bone of Clio's lasted for three days of gnawing sessions, until it became a tiny rough lump and finally disappeared altogether.
My bone, on the other hand, is still buried somewhere in the garden and I have not forgotten where.
That is not to say that I did not try to take over Clio's bone for myself on several occasions. But I was spied by a mean attendant who gave the prize back to Clio and spoke unnecessarily sternly to me. After all, I have my pecking order rights to uphold. It was just me defending those rights. Nothing to do with the fact that Clio had softened the bone and made it much easier to chew on...
Still, a bone in the ground is worth far more than one in the belly and some day I'm going to flaunt it for all it's worth.
