Eternity’s Karen Mudge caught up with Scruff the Dog, from Quiz Worx, over the phone. Scruff talks about his favourite things, and reading the Bible. He has starred in five videos for Bible Society’s ‘Read the Bible With’, to help kids read the Bible in October.

Hi Scruff. Can you tell us a little about yourself? What’s your favourite food?

Yeahh… my favourite food in the whole world is choc-coated bones …mmmmm…hang on, I just have to wipe off the drool on the phone. Choc-coated bones are closely followed by choc-coated puddy cats, then choc-coated postmen. These are my favourite three things in the whole wide wide world.

Do you like children, Scruff?

Not to eat! That would be wrong…although they might be ok dipped in chocolate…But you mean not for eating, don’t you? Yep kids are ok, because they laugh at my jokes.

Do you like reading the Bible, Scruff? Why is it good?

Yeh… but I don’t read it myself because I’m a dog and I can’t read! But Roz and Matt at Quiz Worx read the Bible to me, and some of the stories sound really cool. Everyone here at Quiz Worx tells me about it. They love reading the Bible and telling other people about it.

They keep telling me about this Jesus guy and he sounds incredible!  Because of Jesus you can be friends with God, which sounds like a pretty awesome thing to do.  Some of the things Jesus could do and the things he said are incredible. Like the story Matt was telling me about the big storm, and there were huge waves everywhere, and everyone was saying,  ‘We’re going to die!!’  And then Jesus, he just stood up and said to the waves, ‘That’s enough’ and ‘Be quiet’ and everything stops.

What do you think might be hard about reading the Bible?

Well I can’t read – that would be the first thing!  But for kids, some of them they might find it hard to read too because they are so small. Matt reads the Bible to his small kids, so maybe small kids could ask adults to read the Bible to them. For older kids it might be hard because sometimes they may have other things to do… like chase puddy cats … and they think, ‘what do I do? Chase puddy cats or read the Bible’? But maybe they can do both! Maybe they could even read the Bible while chasing puddy cats!

What if they don’t understand the stories in the Bible?

They should ask someone. That’s what I do! I say, ‘What does that mean?’  Usually the person reading knows what they’re talking about. So the kids could ask someone who knows, like their mum or dad. And hey, they could call me up! But hang on, that won’t help…but I could pass them on to someone who does know the Bible.

Do you have a favourite story from the Bible?

Oh…ooo…are there any stories about dogs or cats? ‘Cause I’d like those. Oh, isn’t there one about throwing pearls to swine… no, that’s right, swine are pigs, not dogs or cats. Oh hang on, there’s another story that Matt likes to tell that I like listening to. He says that while Jesus loves everyone, he did have special friends. One of them called Lazarus died, and it was really sad. But then Jesus brings him back to life again, and says if anyone trusts him, you can live forever! That’s so cool.

Oh, and on the videos, Roz read some Bible stories that are really fun! I got to make a big mess…then I had to clean it up. ‘Cause I learnt that I should do what I say, not just make promises and not do it. I didn’t really like cleaning up, but it was good to do what I’d said, I guess.

Oh and just one more thing… Can you please send choc coated bones to Quix Works… c/o Quiz Worx for Scruff…..and I will love you forever!

Click here to see the videos.