Dogs

I have dogs.  I've had dogs for 25 years.  In that time, they've done relatively little damage to my collection.  Shortly after we moved into our first house back in 2000, our first dog came walking out of my Joe room with a Tomahawk chopper blade in his mouth.  I took it from him with no damage and he never went after another of my toys again.  That crop of dogs lasted from 2000 through 2018.  They left my stuff alone.

In 2020, we broke down and got another dog.  She is a rescue who was found wandering a reservation in New Mexico.  She's a great dog who is nothing but sweet and loving.  Her one flaw is that she does like to chew on plastic.  However, she's been pretty choosy in what she goes after.  Our boys have left toys on the floor for her whole life.  But, eventually, something got her attention and she did start to chew on certain items.  

Every now and then, she'd pick up a spare Lego.  Mostly, she'd play with it in her mouth.  But, then, she chewed up a couple of Clone Troopers.  Those were tough to lose as the boys loved them.  She got in trouble for it and we gave her more of her own chew toys.  But, every now and then, the temptation was too great and we'd find another Clone or a Batman figure chewed up in the living room.  (She really liked Clones for some reason.)  We used as an occasion to teach the kids to pick up their stuff.  

As a collector, I'm a spreader.  Rather than keep things nice and neat, I'll often spread things out on tables, desks, chairs and floors.  I do this to quickly sort things.  But, it's also a way for me to find something I'm looking for.  I have tons of unsorted baggies and shoeboxes of various parts and pieces from the Joe line.  So, it's not uncommon for me to have several areas covered in toys.  When I get busy, these things might sit out for months.  They're in the basement, out of sight and out of mind.  The dog goes down there.  But, she's never touched anything of mine.

Yesterday, though, I had a bit of time and really wanted to replace a couple of worn out shoeboxes that held some parts.  So, I brought two old boxes of stuff up to my office to work on moving to a new box during the day.  One of the boxes contained all of my unused weapon trees from figures I opened back in the '90's and early 2000's.  I love weapon trees.  I think they're really fun.  And, I kept a lot of them still on the sprues as I liked the look and wanted to have them around should I ever need them.  These were in a box in the basement that wasn't covered.  The lid of the box had gotten broken in one move or another.  So, I wanted to get them into a new shoebox with an attached lid.

I brought them up, moved them over and sorted the other baggies in the box.  (They were filled with various Battle Gear weapons.)  I arranged the trees by color.  In the old box, I had the black weapons on bottom, then grey, silver, purple, yellow and red.  In the new box, for just some variety, I switched and put them in reverse order with the black weapons on top.  I got the box all packed up.  But, I remembered that I had a couple of other baggies of Battle Gear weapons in the closet.  Before I closed the box lid, I wanted to go get those weapons.  I wasn't in a hurry.  As the afternoon wore on, it was time to get the kids from various practices and meets.  It's a multi-hour process.  So, I left.

When I came home, the house was dark.  As I turned on a couple of lights in the kitchen, I could see something on the floor on the living room carpet.  Immediately, my heart sunk.  These could only be some of my toys.  I turned on more lights.  And, sure enough, my dog had decided to go into my office, remove some of the weapon trees from the open shoe box and chew them into oblivion!

Because of the series of innocuous decisions of the day, she grabbed all my favorite black weapon trees along with the grey and silver.  The black trees are more nostalgic to me.  I've had them for 30 years, now.  They are common and replaceable.  The grey tree, though, was from the 1994 Payload figure.  Not an easy one to track down.  At least I have a spare set of loose weapons for the figure.  The silver tree, though, was one I hadn't placed when I looked at it earlier in the day.  It had a silver MP-5.  This mold is one of my favorite weapons.  And, I didn't recognize it in silver.

It was only after I posted about it that General Liederkranz gave me the horrifying news that the silver tree is from the 1994 Ozone figure.  Ozone might be the single rarest Joe released on a card.  He's gotten stupidly expensive.  And, I only have a loose one because I was able to pick up a spare carded version for a couple of bucks back in the late 1990's.  I never took his weapons off the tree because the tree was rare and I liked the look of the silver.  And, now, it's gone.

Here is the aftermath:

Fortunately, she seemed to focus her chewing on the more substantive stands.  So, while those were largely destroyed, a few weapons did make it out intact.  Most notably, the silver MP-5 managed to survive with little to no damage.  So, small blessings.  Here's what was somewhat salvageable:

I was fortunate.  Right next to the box with these weapon trees was a drawer full of 2023 Black Major figures.  She could have eaten those instead.  I think there's something about the softer plastic that she really likes.  That's why she eats Clones but really leaves the much more common Legos alone.  

So, a tough day for my Joe collection.  A tough day for me to learn some lessons, too.  It certainly could have been worse.  There were pieces of sprue all over the living room.  And, I'm sure she ate a lot of plastic.  But, she seems OK over 12 hours later.  I gave her extra food to help process the plastic through.  And, I'll find brightly colored waste in the yard when I start mowing again in a few weeks.  But, I can buy more toys, should I want them.  And, the dog is tough.  She lived on her own in the desert for quite a while.  So, we'll be OK.  It was just a surprise to walk into last night!