Performing Surgery

Before going further, we must warn our more sensitive readers that at some point in this post we will be addressing the topic of surgery on a stuffed dog toy. Pictures of the actual surgery are not included, however there are some slightly disturbing pictures of plush farm animals cut from the collarbone region (if plush animals actually had collarbones) down to the nether regions (if plush animals actually had such). 

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Unlike the post from last week, which deviated from our usual method of presenting a "travelogue" of the past week, we will return to relating one of the projects that we here at DE have been working on.

Since it has already been introduced, we will begin with the story of performing surgery on plush animals. Several weeks ago, Engineer J's pet dog, Augustus Theodore Thermopolis Captain Cornelius Junior ("Gus"), underwent surgery. He is of course not a plush animal. He is an actual animal. And we did not perform that operation, since we were out of town at the time. The plush animals come into the story later.

Gus the Dog

After the surgery, the veterinarian gave him an "Elizabethan Collar" (that's a technical term) to wear on his head. Dogs wear these cone-like collars after surgery to prevent people from seeing their faces. It can be rather embarrassing to be seen post-op in a hospital gown with no makeup and sporting uncombed hair.  In certain canine cultures, the cone is actually a fashion statement of sorts. Surprisingly, Gus was not a huge fan of the cone. As such, his spirits have been rather low.

Back at Christmas, Gus received as a gift some plush chew toys. However, these toys were for a dog with a mouth about 15 times the size of Gus' mouth. Whoever designed these toys obviously did not put much research into the product. A 25-pound dog cannot shove a volleyball-sized plush toy into its mouth. Thus we, the Domestic Engineers, decided to construct a toy for Gus to play with.

To back up slightly, several months ago Gus had another toy. This toy was a plush frog that squeaked. He destroyed that toy quite quickly, since it had clearly not gone through proper quality assurance procedures. But, we rescued the squeaking part of the toy, which was vital for our next toy.

While sitting around on the 4th of July, we decided that we were going to perform a slight surgery on the large dog toys from Christmas. Avert your eyes now if you get queasy easily.

All three animals went under the X-acto Knife

This surgery consisted of carefully slicing open three dog toys and pulling out the big plastic bulbs inside. Once the plastic bulbs were removed, the dog toys were a much more practical size. The animals represented were as follows: American Yorkshire Pig (Sus scrofa domesticus), Holstein-Friesian Cow (Bos taurus), and the American Beefalo (Bos taurus × Bison bison). Yes, that animal in brown is a Beefalo. What is a Beefalo you ask? It is the offspring of domestic cattle with the American buffalo (bison). Hence "Beefalo." We determined that this last animal was a beefalo, since it did not really look like a something purely from the cattle family.

(Aside: As per several sources, viz. [1], [2], and [3], only three genetically "pure" [i.e. not mixed with domestic cattle] American bison herds exist in the United States: One of them is in Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota; the other two are in Yellowstone National Park and the Henry Mountains area of Utah. As luck would have it, Engineer R has been to all three regions. And he has read more about domestic cattle and the American bison than you would care to know).

But, back to the beefalo we surgered. After cutting open the stuffed beefalo, we placed a squeaker into its innards, then stitched it back up. We have not heard the latest on how Gus has taken to the toy, but at least initially he seemed to like the toy okay. Here are two pictures of the toy in action:






















This about sums up our work with stuffed dog toy surgery. It is amazing how much one can write about cutting plush animals open with an X-acto knife.


Before ending this post, we would be remiss if we did not post some sort of photo of the 4th of July. This is said photo:

Loyal, Strong, and True.

As always, feel free to comment on a time that you performed surgery. I once had a roommate that performed surgery on himself. He was not always well accepted in society. Although I also had roommates that the local social fold rejected just because. Surgery or no surgery, didn't matter.