Shelby, the monkey, and Bearie

Shelby, our loveable, lazy mutt, is far less than energetic. I've covered this territory extensively, I believe.

She does have one toy that she likes to play with. It's a stuffed monkey with ridiculously long arms and legs. Once, while we were away and some friends were house sitting and dog sitting, Shelby found this monkey (it had belonged to one of the girls, although they cared not a lick for it) and began enticing the dog sitters to play tug of war with her using said monkey and to throw it across the room for her to fetch.

When we returned, we were both surprised and pleased at this new endeavor of our sweet, mindless, four-legged, dim-witted friend. She actually wanted to play with us!

What we soon realized is that "play" is a relative term. And also a very short term.

She plays with the monkey for all of about 3 minutes at a time, sometimes less. And at most once a day. Usually more like once every 3 days. She can't have the monkey interrupting her naps, you see.

Remarkably, she has played with it enough that the monkey's fabric eyes have disappeared, and some of the seams are ripped open.Evidently, Shelby is freaked out by her now blind and somewhat less full monkey, because she has abandoned it for another stuffed animal that she found: Bearie, the weirdly purple bear. Now, Bearie is the toy she grabs for her extremely brief times of play.

Jenna was sure that this caused some amount of concern, and possibly even depression, for poor monkey and concocted a photo essay to document this tale of scorn and abandonment.

Shelby, favoring the fully sighted and much plumper Bearie, keeps the purple bear close by while monkey waits wearily beneath the corner of the recliner, hoping no one chooses to rock and thereby crush her physically, just as she has already been crushed emotionally.Bearie taunts monkey as he (she? it?) gloats in her new friendship with Shelby and demonstrates her favored status by proximity to the wonder dog as monkey slumps despondently. Bearie: "She likes me best! Don't even think about trying to get back in her good graces. I'm purple. You're some sort of non-descript beige...without eyes!"
Monkey: "Maybe I can just climb on the precious dog's back and bask in her warmth. Oh, Shelby...what went wrong?"Shelby: "Huh? Why am I awake? Did somebody say treat?"