Dog's Best Friend

Bernard has a squeaky toy.

For those of you who don't know, Bernard is the seven month old lowchen with whom I'm currently co-habiting. He is my housemate Lucy's adored dog, and he is very cute and very dopey.

Anyway, this toy - I think it's a dog, or a cat or something - is the bane of my existence, and I'm not the only one. Mike (Lucy's live-in boyfriend) has been known to hide it, just to make the infernal squeaking stop, but it's Bernard's favourite toy and to get rid of it would be to incite Lucy's wrath. So most of the time we just put up with the 'squeeeeea-eeeeak' squeak squeak squeak' from Squeaky (as he was so imaginatively named).

Unfortunately he has taken recently to chewing on Squeaky as a pre-sleep form of entertainment, which means that as the rest of the house settles into bed, Bernard and Squeaky are playing. From my room at the other end of the hallway, I can hear it;

'squeeeeea-eeeeak' squeak squeak squeak'.

This will go on for varying lengths of time, and ends when Mike employs some colourful language, grabs Squeaky and tosses him somewhere high up where Bernard can't reach.

One particular night, earlier this week, I was lying in bed listening to this nighttime play when the sound of the squeak changed.

"Squeee----------eak? Squ-----Squ-----Squ-----eak? Squark."

Then no more.

Bernard had finally killed Squeaky. Mike and I could finally breathe a sigh of relief as Squeaky became just another harmless, if slightly grotty, chew toy.

So you can imagine my concern when I got home after work the next day and heard;

"Squack. Squaaaack. Squack squack squack."

When I walked into the room, Bernard looked up at me with an expression of pure happiness. Between his front paws lay a big, yellow duck. A big, yellow, squacking duck.

Lucy had the grace to look slightly abashed. "He was just so sad about Squeaky that I had to replace him. This is Bernard's new favourite toy!"

So the squeaking was gone. But the squacking continues.