pablo and his babies

No, Pablo doesn't have real babies. That's the name for the stuffed toys he carries around the house in his mouth. More generically, it's the name for anything he carries around in his mouth - because sometimes it's a sock, sometimes it's the stuffing from inside one of the babies.

I about died the first time I  heard Chad say, "get your baby, Pablo. where's your baby?" and he ran off
to find his favorite orange monster. The toy basket at Chad's house was always full of nicely cared-for babies, tugs, and balls. Every now and then Ramsey would kill a baby (remove it's stuffing), but for the most part, she and Pablo were very well-behaved and just used them to play keep-away. Socks were almost never in the baby pile, and there definitely weren't balls of baby stuffing laying around for Pablo to play with.

And then came Suvi...poor Pablo, his babies now have the life span of a mosquito. Suvi LOVES anything with a squeaker. Rather, she LOVES to surgically remove the squeaker from anything that has one. And along with that comes the stuffing. Non-squeaky babies? She LOVES to tug with Ramsey, especially when it's with a brand-new fuzzy baby. We're working on being non-destructive...and only tugging with appropriate toys, like ropes and balls.

No more "poor Pablo". Don't worry - we make sure Pablo has plenty of healthy babies. We've finally got a few that have lasted a few months. His recent favorite is gingerbread man-shaped baby we bought from Target in November, and the girls have learned they're not allowed to touch it, unless it's to play keep-away with Pablo! We have a baby variety stockpiled in a kitchen cupboard, just in case a baby goes missing.

Every time one of us comes home from work, Pablo runs to grab a baby and greets us at the door. (It was fun to hear that other dogs do this too, in the comments from the last blog post!)

When he wants to play, he grabs a baby. Then comes to sit RIGHT next to either Chad and me, or his sisters - and growls. And if you don't pay attention, he comes closer, sticking the baby right at you - and then either runs away, or turns his head and growls. "Play with me!"

Chad always lets him win. I mostly let him win. Ramsey tugs gently, plays for a while, then usually wins. Suvi just steals the baby (carefully) and runs away. I wonder if he chooses who he's going to play with based on how we play back?

My favorite is when he sleeps with the babies, using them as a very small pillow, his chin rested right on top. It's not a protective thing - he just really loves to be next to his babies. And they're really perfectly-sized Pablo pillows!

I still chuckle at Chad calling them "babies." Oh, the things you don't see on camera...