Together, They Fight Crime

Barley, a dog, holds her toy manta ray in her jaws. The manta ray is weirdly into it.

Barley’s manta ray always seems to enjoy getting thrashed around - that “looking over my shoulder” effect really is quite striking. It’s a favorite toy because of its secret weapon: layers of crinkly plastic inside its fins and tails on par with the very loudest of Sun Chips bags. I don’t know of an evolutionary argument for why this is a fun sound for dogs, but I have my own hypothesis: Barley has a lot of experience hearing me open plastic food bags and now gets wound up by any crinkly plastic noises.