Canard a l’Cleo
Nov 12th, 2008 by Marilyn
Cleo’s best friend – other than me, Keeper of the Food – is a duck. A stuffed duck.
A stuffed duck with a ripped beak and a limp neck.
Cleo takes Ducky everywhere, and is happiest when the fattest part fills her mouth. “Where’s Ducky?” we say, “go get Ducky!” She frantically searches upstairs and clatters back, full of triumphant duck. Then she tries to impress us by whacking it about the neck. “Is that a kill-ing?” we’ll say, “are you killing Ducky?”
Cleo can’t kill a ladybug or even retrieve a tennis ball. She shakes the duck but winds up shaking her own body, getting dizzy and hitting the rug. Still, we egg her on. “Yes you do…you do kill that Ducky!”
And that’s where reality breaks. For people who are not hunters, people who do not shoot waterfowl or sit in cold duck blinds, we sure do think it’s cute. Labs and ducks…so very Orvis, so by-the-fire! Josie won’t touch real duck – not roasted or smoked, not cherried or stuffed, she declares it just too Donald. “They swam in the pool,” she’ll remind us, “at the Wilderness Lodge.”
The duck makes us do stupid things. I run around yelling “Get Ducky!” and ring like Eliza Doolittle – “get ducky, guv’na!” When we urge Cleo to entertain us with a “killing,” we’re suddenly a plush toy lynch mob. Not one of us would ever hurt a duck. Maybe a slice of smoked duck breast now and then, fine, as long as I didn’t make it, but…there’s no getting around it. There’s just something about those eyes and that floppy green neck…
“Kill Ducky!”
Cleo can come hang out in Chinatown with me. We’ll get a platter of duck tacos. Yummy!
Cleo is so beautiful, but you knew that already…
omg how adorable they are! I have some labrador-inlaws that have that very same ducky…
She is too cute. Aren’t dogs the best?
Mine is part black lab, part Springer spaniel. I love to egg her on too.
Hmm. For our Sequoia, it’s “No you don’t… you don’t kill that ducky!” for some reason.
And Wilderness Lodge? These swim in the pool in the *backyard*. I have a feeling we won’t be eating them, even though that’s supposed to be part of the plan.
Oh, that is so our house – except we say “punish bear man” or bear moose, dog, lamb etc and Polly goes crazy trying to kill the toy. I also thought we had the only non-retrieving retrievers. Seems not….
she is cute! (see? I’m warming up…..)
What an entertaining post! I used to have a Shih-Tzu who packed around a toy donkey. Occasionally he “killed” it … and then held it down with his front paws, “talked” to it, and licked it all better again.
I love this post! What is it about labs that makes you just want to nuzzle you nose in their necks and hug them as if they were children? I grew up with Bubba, a yellow lab, who wasn’t the brightest light bulb on the street, but had a heart that knew no stranger. When I saw your picture of Cleo stretched out on the rug with Ducky, it reminded me of Bubba and I wished that I had a big, sweet lab to hug right now!
We use to have pet ducks at our old, old house. We raised them from babies. Over the years nature reduced our flock of 8 to 1 and Puppy and the duck hung out together. i would walk outside and the would be sitting in the shade together. We never bought one of the stuffed ducks, just in case he got mixed up.
Cute! I have hunting dogs, and I also have a house dog that kills her ‘baby’, and then ‘kisses’ it all better too…
Non-retrieving retrievers are the BEST! But in my hubby’s words… ‘good for nothing, but pooping and eating’. He doesn’t get it… Nothing better than seeing those sad lab eyes.
What a sweet story! You’ve left me all misty-eyed for my black lab, Harley, who died a few years ago.
Dogs are the best, and they sure love their toys. Maggie has Purple Dragon, Wubby (her blanket she drags around), Chicken, Rattle Fish (‘cuz he no longer squeeks) and the very un-PC Gay Elephant, who is pink with white polka dots. She knows them all by name, too.
Put down the ducky…put down the ducky… put down the ducky if you want to play the saxophone.
My dogs have that same ducky and they love it. Your dog is so cute and so is your blog. Love the duck……
How sweet! We have a German Shepherd, Jade, and she has a hedgehog that she loves. She makes him squeak and loves to fetch him when we throw the little guy!