Don’t let this precious little face fool you. It’s the face of a devil dog, and I created her!
See that thing in Finja’s mouth? Of and by itself, it is an adorable little thing. It is a stuffed monkey made for dogs and it makes the most gosh-awful sound when the dog squeezes it. Finja loves to squeeze it. That’s Problem number 1.

Problem number 2: She is absolutely, unequivocally and resolutely obsessed with the thing. No big deal, right?
Wrong.
My little pupper will not, repeat, will NOT let go of this thing, for anything, except food. What you see here in this picture is exactly how she, and it, look all day long. She carries it in her mouth everywhere she goes. When she has it, we keep her separate from the other dogs because, well, it is entirely possible that there could be an unfriendly discussion among them. So, we remove the monkey from her mouth and put it someplace where she won’t know where it is.
Ha!
So much for that idea. Dogs and their sense of smell. We have since found a fool-proof hiding spot, but until we did, no matter we put the monkey to encourage her to forget about it, no luck. She became a quasi-pointing dog, eyes unwavering on the spot where the monkey was “hiding.”
We are thinking this monkey is her “baby” in a very real sense, but never having bred dogs, maybe someone can tell me if this makes sense?
This whole monkey deal is somewhat endearing, except for when it is really, really not.