Dog Destroys Elvis Teddy Bear at Museum

Dog Destroys Elvis Teddy Bear at Museum
via AP

LONDON (Aug. 2) - A guard dog has ripped apart a collection of rare teddy bears, including one once owned by Elvis Presley , during a rampage at a children's museum.

"He just went berserk," said Daniel Medley, general manager of the Wookey Hole Caves near Wells, England, where hundreds of bears were chewed up Tuesday night by the 6-year-old Doberman pinscher named Barney.
Barney ripped the head off a brown stuffed bear once owned by the young Presley during the attack, leaving fluffy stuffing and bits of bears' limbs and heads on the museum floor. The bear, named Mabel, was made in 1909 by the German manufacturer Steiff.

The collection, valued at more than $900,000, included a red bear made by Farnell in 1910 and a Bobby Bruin made by Merrythought in 1936.

The bear with Elvis connections was owned by English aristocrat Benjamin Slade, who bought it at an Elvis memorabilia auction in Memphis, Tenn., and had loaned it to the museum.

"I've spoken to the bear's owner and he is not very pleased at all," Medley said.
A security guard at the museum, Greg West, said he spent several minutes chasing Barney before wrestling the dog to the ground.


So why am I posting this here? Perhaps because I'm amused. Next week's story might just be how a toddler went berserk while guarding a vault of Tickle-Me Elmos and chocolate chip cookies. "Why yes," the higher powers of the Wookey Hole Caves, "It is pure genius on our parts to have a dog guard expensive chew toys! What could possibly go wrong?"

Part of my smugness is perhaps in part because I foster no love of Elvis (he is dead. Get over it.) All animistic feelings aside, they are just toys - possibly hand-stitched with pride by underpaid seamstresses working in sweltering tin roofed factories in Mexico or Taiwan. The dog, of course, is a dog, and prone to chewing all things soft and fluffy. Is it possible the animal was a retired narcotics officer, who detected a whiff of cocaine left behind when the stuffed ani-mules crossed into the United States? Or was the alluring scent of Dead Celebrity Sweat just too much for Barney the Guard Dog (he only carries one bullet) to resist. In an Elvis Body Fluid-induced rampage, he must have lashed out in a desperate bid to locate and ingest more of the chemicals?

We shouldn't treat Old Barney with cruel intentions. After all, he ain't nothing but a hound dog. Next time, I would advise hiding the blue suede shoes.