A boy and his dog

Ever since Casey was just born, he had a favorite stuffed animal dog. Constantly, he has been surrounded by stuffed animals, but this dog was his favorite. I have no idea how he could pick this one out, but he did! He LOVES this dog. It goes everywhere with him. Therein lies the problem. A few months ago, we took a trip to East LA for some grubbin mexican food. It was a nasty night, cold and rainy. We found some street parking in the barrio, and as we opened the door to get Casey out of the car.. his doggie jumped out of the car, right into the gutter. In 'da hood, in the rain, with all the runoff flowing thru this gutter, this was about the worst place for his beloved doggie. Just so you get the whole picture, Casey snuggles, hugs, pets, bites, sucks ( insert about ANY verb here) this dog constantly. So, to simply shake off the dog and hand it back to him would be irresponsible parenting.. and believe it or not, I'm actually a responsible parent...
So, we have no choice but to put doggie in the washing machine. Which leads me to the first rule of parenting... If your child has a favorite toy/ animal... GET DUPLICATES... The original is gonna break, get lost, get worn out at some inopportune time. Once doggie came out of the washer and dryer, it became clear that he wasnt going to live forever. We needed to find a twin. Simple enough. Tia got him at Target. We goto Target.. nothing.. Ok, read the tag and find the manufacter. Except that Casey has sucked the tag so much, it wasnt legible. Somehow, we figured out the company. I emailed and called them.. sent them photos of the dog, asking if they could identify it... They came back with.... "It's been discontinued... It's been so long, its not even in our system".. Another dead-end. So, I started searching Ebay. Ok, maybe searching is the wrong word, because that implies typing words into the search box and hitting enter... Only I didnt have any words to search with... What am I supposed to type? "Stuffed Dog" "My son's favorite toy"... no, I did it the brute force way... Looked at tiny picture icons until I saw potential matches... Then, EUREKA, I struck gold.
Here is the new dog, sitting in Casey's crib moments before he met his new owner...
Here is Casey, pointing at... his dog? He knew something was off...
Checking him over, petting his ear.

I think Casey likes him!