Mr. Peabody didn't need chew toys

When Rocket was a very little guy, before I ever brought him home, I bought him toys. Many of the toys I bought him were Educational Toys - beause I wanted play to be an enriching experience and everything I read said that if you made play "challenging" they would play longer and better and never, ever, ever bark  mindlessly for hours on end or destroy things. Ever. These toys are called "genis toys" or "treat puzzles", because your dog has it in him to cure cancer and has the patience to really sit and work at something for hours.

Liars

Most of these toys were way too big and unwieldy for my leetle baby puppah so they went either unused or ignored. Its tough to play with a rubber tree branch when it is both larger than you and out weighs you by three pounds. Puppies are also known non-geniuses. Sad but true, they make them cute so you don't notice what complete idiots they are.

Well, times and dog body mass change. Today Young Rocket can enjoy a good challenge for three to five minutes at a time and he now outweighs  his toys. I noticed this and put some of his treats into the most handy of the genius toys and waited.

He thought it was fun, it had a good beat and he could dance to it. He could not however get those cookies out and that made him sad or hungry or frustrated enough to destroy a lesser plastic toy. Regardless, he was distracted and that is a good thing

Tonight while I was watching the last 30 Rock ever (SOB!) I noticed that he was chewing something. It doesn't matter how recently you vacuum your floor, your puppy will find something either poisonous or small enough to choke on or both. I pried his jaws open and did a sweep and came up with nothing buy dog spit. Lovely. It was then I saw on the floor a cookie! He had solved the Treat Puzzle! Rocket is a genius!

Rocket has sharp teeth!  It wasn't solved, it was mangled!

Why yes, the picture quality is atrocious! Thank you for noticing. Its a chew toy, get over it. He still has two Genius Toys on the bench and on he still can't get into, its round, so its really hard for him to properly get a grip on because he should be able to crack it open  pretty easily now that he figured out the first one. Maybe if he was a real genius I would have to worry about this eventuality, but since all it takes to give him a "new" toy is to hide one of his old ones for a couple of days, I won't start saving for Doggy College just yet.