Serious Business

Barley, a dog, chews forcefully on a toy bone made of black rubber.

Among Barley’s “just for chewing” toys, her Mammoth TireBiter bone is the clear favorite. If she’s beside herself with excitement and is told to “go get a toy” to displace that excitement, she’ll almost always grab this bone if she has a clear sightline to it. When she chews on it, she does so with an almost trance-like intensity, her eyes unfocused and the rest of her body slack and forgotten as her will is concentrated in her jaw. I enjoy idly wondering what kind of canine emotion underpins this all-business chompin’.