The Dog and his toys

My dog loves his toys. We've seen a remarkable change in him as we attempted to control his dominant nature. He no longer destroys his toys. Oh - he'll put holes in them and kill the squeakers and occasionally pull out the stuffing. But it's different now, where he used to destroy them - I mean pull out all the stuffing, rip apart the fabric, pull out the squeakers all within about 30 minutes - now his toys last for months. So - he's getting to have a lot of them. It's our fault. We buy them. We love to see him with his new toys. He's cute with how he likes to carry them around. He's got a bunch in his bed. Another group in his spot in the attic and then another bunch in a basket downstairs. He knows how to get them out of the basket. Unfortunately, he hasn't got the trick of putting them back yet. He just loves toys. He loves them so much, that we have to limit his trips to the pet store. We took him on Sunday to buy a new coat. (He gets cold in the winter and is a short haired dog, so he needs the coat.) All that dog did at the store was cry. It wasn't because he could see other dogs there - he wasn't much interested in them. He could see the toys. After picking out a coat, we headed over to the toys to "let him pick one out". HA! That dog was in doggie heaven. He was bopping all sorts of toys with his nose, pulling A from one section to the next. We finally decided on George the Gingerbread Man. (I name his toys.) George has a couple of love bites, but he still has all his appendages and both his eyes. This time last year, George would be in the garbage by now.