Right after adopting Sox, we took him to the petstore to pick up a tag, collar and few toys. While strolling the aisles, I picked up a few toys made for smallish dogs. Balls, stuffed toys and a double sided squeaker monkey from Petstages. For the next few weeks, the balls and stuffed toys were ignored and my mornings and evenings were spent throwing that monkey. After that, we bought him the zebra version and after that it was blue mouse. We even bought him the big lion and raccoon version of the toy. His toy bin was menagerie of these things – all in heavy rotation until we brought home Hippy.

From that day on, nothing compared to his love of Hippy. We would play fetch before we went to sleep and then wake up to find Hippy in bed with us. Whenever we came home, Sox would run to his favorite toy and bring it to us. Sometimes, the others would get in on the fun and pick up his favorite grey friend. Nothing would drive Sox crazy as much as when Waffles would take it, run off and then chew on the ears and tail. Sox would fuss until he got back, which is weird because Sox won’t hesitate to slap me when he wants something but would never dream of doing it to Waffs. And his love for his hippies (he has many) didn’t end when they lost their innards and had been loved to death. Doesn’t matter what condition his Hippy was in, it was still loved by him.

Since Sox loves his Hippy so much, it only seems natural to celebrate his Sox’s adopt-a-versary with an ode to Hippy.