Going with humor and the dog teddy rhyme…
My last Labrador Retreiver I bought a 3’ tall stuffed teddy bear for her at about 12 weeks old. “Bubba” I christened it. I hesitated to purchase it for at $20 I thought it might only last a week or two. But, I thought it would be fun to watch her play with it, even if only for a short while.
She loved Bubba! It went everywhere with us. She had to go out to pee, she would drag Bubba along. Run around the yard? Bubba was with her. She would dig a hole in the mulch pile, bury him, panic then dig him up again. He went swimming, in mud puddles… And when she went out for ‘last call’ at night, she made sure Bubba came back in. Slept with him, wrestled with it, played inside… Her favorite game was when Bubba would go flying through the air!!! And she would leap up, grab it then run him around the house before dragging him back to do it again.
You get the picture. Well, I dig a hole for my gal at 8 years old and Bubba rests with her. Bubba was a little worse for the wear. I had to sew a couple seams on him but ya know what? He still had both plastic eyes and the little tag on him. She never once even tried to destroy it. She had done her share of destroying stuff, but never her old pal Bubba.