August 2, 2006
Dog Destroys Elvis' Teddy Bear at Museum
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:55 p.m. ET
LONDON (AP) -- 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.
― shookout (shookout), Wednesday, 2 August 2006 18:36 (eighteen years ago)
well he ain't nuthin but a hound-dog...
da dum! i hope you all enjoy the prime-rib folks..i'll be here all week.
― J. Grizzle--Here Comes Treble (trainsmoke), Wednesday, 2 August 2006 23:25 (eighteen years ago)
Was he a guard dog? They should have expected this - you can't taunt the poor Dobie with thousands of chew toys night after night and not expect him to break.
― milo z (mlp), Wednesday, 2 August 2006 23:43 (eighteen years ago)
I can understand if the dog grabbed one teddy bear thinking it was a toy (which it is) but for it to go through the whole collection (or some large portion of it) seems almost like a deliberate middle-claw to the man. I mean "several hundred" bears in "several minutes"? Damn.
― graf cycliz (graf cycliz), Thursday, 3 August 2006 05:37 (eighteen years ago)