Tribble Attack!

If you've followed this blog at all you know that I am a not very closeted Trekkie.   I'm very devoted to my favorite series, sometimes perhaps a bit too much, my dogs are often the recipient of this fandom. 

Recently my Star Trek devotion and my love of dogs collided in another way.

Exhibit A: Weasley

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Innocent and cute as he is, Weasley has had a problem since the day he came to us

he has been a slipper attacker.   For nearly a year I walked around the house in the evening with a fawn pug puppy attatched to my slippers.  I tried all the techniques: freezing in place, distracting with a toy, but Weasley was just obsessed with slippers.  Thanfuly as he got older his slipper aggression died down, but we still experience occasional flare ups.  The most recent victims where my Totoro slippers

Oh I hardly new thee. 

Left in the middle of the cold winter with no slippers and an Amazon gift card I received as a Christmas gift, I started looking for slippers and that's where Star Trek came in.  I discovered these Tribble Slippers

For the non-trekkie who has no idea what Tribbles are, they are the center plot point of a very famous 1967  StarTrek episode The Trouble With Tribbles.  Basically Tribbles are furry little animals that make  purring noises and enjoy being held, seemingly the perfect pet, accept that they reproduce endless and one Tribble quickly becomes a thousand.

Now I love Tribbles, the episode was one of my favorites and I was very excited to see an actual Tribble  prop from the episode at the one and only Star Trek convention I ever attended.

 
Needless to say I was sorely tempted to buy the slippers, they even made Tribble noises!, but I was concerned about how Weasley would react to slippers that  looked like large fuzzy dog toys.  Well I weakened. 

The slippers arrived in one day, thank you Amazon Prime!, and I decided to try them out.  They have a sound box on the top of the toe that can be turned on or off.  I decided to start with the sounds turned off, for obvious reasons.  At first Weasley wasn't interested in the slippers.

Eventually though he moved in for the kill (not pictured).   I decided to try an experiment and turned on the slippers sound box.  Weasley stopped the attack immediately.  He wasn't frightened, which of course I wouldn't have wanted, just surprised.  He began to keep a respectful distance from the slippers.

As seen in this poorly shot video:

Tubby and Ping showed some interest in the Tribble sounds, but basically ignored the slippers (note the café press Star Trek dog tees):

Weasley made peace with them too (but if he decides to attack I can always turn on that sound box).