the warthog of Theseus

our puppy, Hamilton, who is almost one whole year of age, loves to chew on things.

we have so far trained him out of chewing on most of the important non-chewable things like human digits, power cords, furniture. still working on getting him to leave shoes and socks and slippers alone.

the pugs have plenty of toys. bone-shaped toys, duck-shaped toys, warthog shaped toys, and a variety of balls. the stuffed toys are especially beloved, but they also seem the most fragile. they tear, their stuffing leaks, and then Hamilton chews on that. and swallows it if he gets a chance.

so I've repaired the stuffed warthog and the two stuffed ducks a few times now.

this green woven nylon duck has needed it the most-- the original stitching around the neck didn't stand a chance against two playful pugs. my own rough but persistent stitching has held up better, so far... but we'll just have to see how many more times it's actually worth mending before there is no neck left to hold any of the rest together.

the warthog (who is named Moriarty, and who has been Wesley's companion for longer than I've known him) is accumulating his fair share of scars, too. when Hamilton ripped his underarms open the other day, I took the opportunity to remove all the long-dead plastic squeakers from among the warthog's fluffy guts before I patched him back up.

much of Moriarty's body fabric is so torn and threadbare that it barely wants to hold any stitches anymore. rather than force his shredded fur back into some puckery semblance of its original glory, I've taken to grafting in other scraps of fabric to strengthen the repairs. around his eye it's a beige linen of some sort. filling in the spots in his armpits and belly is an old floral-print fabric shower curtain.

this stuffed warthog has lasted a pretty long time. and Hamilton loves him more than any other toy (though I hypothesize that part of this attachment is an "absence makes the heart grow fonder" sort; when the thing needs mending I have to keep it on a shelf out of reach, lest the puppy devour all the stuffing). I imagine he'll be worth stitching up again and again for a long time, even if all the original fur pieces eventually get replaced and replaced again with grafts from my scrapbin of random fabrics.