I know I haven’t blogged much about Bro, but I’m sure I’ve mentioned how much he loves the ball? Seriously, the ball is his brain, he has the external kind. He can’t help it, he’s a Border Collie.
Normally, when we meet people I’ll say, “don’t throw the ball if you don’t want to be stuck with it.” They look at me like I’m nuts, like how could you deny the cute puppy wanting me to throw the ball? And they throw it.
After a few minutes they’ll say, “your dog really likes the ball.”
After half an hour or so they start asking if he ever stops. He never does. He’ll be throwing up from the heat and still chasing the ball (for real, this happened once when we lived in Arizona and the neighbor kids were playing with him).
In our normal life, I throw the ball for a little bit twice a day, and that’s it. After ten years, there is a limit to my ball throwing (although, after ten years there is still no limit to Bro’s ball retrieving).
My sisters house is ball throwing heaven. She’s got this nice huge back yard. She’s got plenty of people around most of the time, and she makes them go outside to smoke, which they do… well, often. Hell, half the time they just stay out there, cause it is a nice back yard. Outside equals ball throwing.
Bro knows his targets, too. He understands that the young women with babies in their laps are not about to throw the ball. He goes after the young men, because they are compulsive ball throwers. After that, he pesters the children, because even if they can’t throw the ball very far, they’re guaranteed to do something entertaining with it. Last night he spent ages with this three year old who would run across the yard with the ball, stop, wave it at him, lecture a little, run back, and throw it like two feet.
Five hours of ball throwing later, when we went out to the van for the night, he practically floated with this big ol’ grin on his face, and he’s been sleeping ever since.
Wow, for a minute there I was worried that you meant he’d gone to doggie heaven. Glad to hear that’s not the case.
Lady Gwen’s dog Punky is a nightmare to play ball with…she’ll latch onto the ball & not let go. You have to steal it away to play fetch & repeat as needed. She’s a Black Lab, so maybe she thinks the ball is a duck.
My dog Brutus cannot figure out Fetch. He’s too lazy.
Damn! Have a heart, girl! I thought the title meant that Bro had died and all through the story I’m thinking about it and then how it must have happened at your sisters and then how it must have happened while playing with the kids…
Phew!
Keep up the good writing, but please get someone else to write the titles. 😉
Maxine’s comment on Punky reminded me of my old border collie, Rupert. We eventually learned to have two or more balls. When he returned with one in his mouth, we’d throw the second one and he’d drop the first one.
Ball rotation.
🙂
I changed the title… sorry guys.