About an hour ago this was a brand new ball. It had just arrived home after the last leg of its journey. I’m imagining it started life in the far East somewhere and arrived here in the UK in a container from whence it was trucked into a Pets at Home warehouse, then on to Liskeard store. It rested there a while and finally took the relatively short trip up the hill to home.

The dogs knew that the bag I brought in from the shop had toys in it and they were each given one such to play with. I was conscious of them playing but was both shocked and horrified to look down only 45 minutes later to see the remains of this ball. There is perhaps only a sixth of its original surface area left.

So what do we do? JD is marching around with a great big smirk on his face. Both dogs are happy. We are a few quid worse off. Is the cost of the toy proportionate to its longevity when arriving in the house? Almost certainly not. Do we reflect on the enjoyment they’ve got from the toy or do we think “that was a total waste of hard-earned”? I dunno.