My Life in Objects -- XIV (Puppy)

This woebegone object was once a plump and thriving stuffed animal -- a bear, in fact, though for some reason my children always called him "Puppy." Their only other stuffed animal, a snake, was named "Snakey." Pedestrian nicknames to be sure. I admit that our family wasn't very imaginative about naming our mascots.

Even though Puppy is past his prime, he's still a most treasured critter. If the house broke into flames, and I could only rescue one item, I'd have to grab Puppy and leave to their fates the jeweled goblets, the ancient diamond tiara, the Stradivarius, the Vermeers, and the First Folios. Puppy is more valuable.

Puppy looks as though he was abused, but it's not so. He was only loved to death. Because he was our only bear, the three children struggled for ownership. Poor Puppy was a field of combat. He was pulled, stretched, thrown, dunked, employed as a soccer ball, and in at least one memorable instance, voluminously vomited upon. Over the course of the decades, the sad fellow lost almost all his fur, his corneas, his entire snout, two-thirds of his stuffing, and both of his original ears. I myself attached two prosthetic leather ears, only one of which survives -- and also sewed on his asymmetrical leather mouth. In addition, early in Puppy's career, I performed a delicate musicboxectomy. 

Why only one stuffed bear to be struggled over? Why not three -- one apiece -- as would be sensible in families that hope to avoid sibling strife? Why the paucity of stuffed animals? Because both Althea and I came from families that were ideologically opposed to such indulgences. Grandma Anne, Althea's mother, wouldn't allow stuffed animals in her home because they were "unsanitary." My parents didn't much believe in toys of any kind -- kids were supposed to make their own entertainment out of pots and pans. (My father came from so impoverished a family that a stuffed bear would have been an inconceivable luxury.) Therefore my brothers and I grew up deprived of warm, furry, reassuring "transitional objects," which had no consequences whatsoever, for me, setting aside the periodic gloom and the vast existential void in my soul.

Puppy is now in my care because my children can't decide to whom he properly belongs. I hope they don't fight over him after I die -- he can't take any more pummeling. I stow Puppy in a drawer of the old Irish desk, but because of his long service to the family, he deserves much better. Rightly, Puppy should lie in state, ensconced in an illuminated lucite display case atop a stately jasper or malachite plinth. 

Comments

[Sharon Mathison]

I also have this muched loved stuffed animal. Like your children, I always thought he was a dog. His name is Bowsie and after 57 years he still sits on my bed.

Do you know what the original name of this stuffed animal was? I never had any luck researching.

Thank you for sharing.

[eve]

i love puppy

[Don Z. Block]

Two of my six dogs turn their hound noses up at bones and focus their teeth on the many stuffed animals in the family room. The floor is always covered by what looks like snow. Even before a stupid and vicious liar commandeered the oval office, we have lived in a dog-eat-stuffed-animals world. In the event of a natural disaster--floods and big winds have been taking huge chunks out of my neighborhood--both dogs and stuffed animals would have to be rescued, probably by boat. What would be left when we reach a shore?