I am reasonably certain that my dog would - if given the options - literally eat and play ball in the back yard for virtually all of his life. It actually tires me out watching home play catch because he would run up and down the length of the grassy strip next to the house until his little heart gives out.
His favorite ball, by the way, is a bouncy rubber Barbie ball.
My sense, of course, from what I’ve gathered from other long-time dog owners, is that this is nothing out of the ordinary. While it’s true that I had a dog with I was a teenager, the situation was different because Patches was a rescue dog - a one time hunting Beagle that had been shot and was now timid and slow, just looking for a nice family to spend quiet days with.
Nothing like the bullet we now live with. Pip has learned, finally, to actually return the ball, so I have to do very little actually running myself, though more than I’d like because - well how do I say this diplomatically - he’s not, um, smart. He’s enthusiastic for sure! He WANTS to figure things out, but somewhere along the line of being the runt in the litter, I think some wires may have been crossed.
I wrote an essay for the local newspaper where I may have called him a lovable idiot. Many… many… readers honed in on the idiot part and ignored the lovable part, deciding that I was the idiot of the duo. My wife tells me if I wanted to write something more popular and viral, I should write about the dog because people care more about dogs than virtually anything else. She may be right.
With my in-laws living with us for a time, I’m firmly somewhere around the fourth or fifth favorite creature in the house from the dog’s perspective. We’ve all had some scheduling challenges lately, though, that has left me as the sole caretaker in the house and he’s had little choice but to vie for my attention.
So just today, I tossed him in the car and we went over to Starbucks to pick up a coffee for me and a pup cup for him, which I think is just whipped cream. I’m not certain, but he ate it in two seconds and then ran around the house like being chased by spiders for the next hour so I guess it was good.
As I write this, he’s asleep on my feet. Literally on my feet, tuckered from balls and sugar and spiders I suppose.
I’m under no illusion that as soon as the ladies of the house get home he’ll abandon me faster than a plate of raw broccoli. But until then, well, we’ll chase the ball and get some behind-the-ears scratching in and see how it goes. Maybe I’ll even move up in the pecking order.
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I've never had a dog, so I can't speak to the part about being a "lovable idiot", but I do know that animals can tell what kind of person you are, regardless of their intellect. So, the fact that Pip was asleep on your feet says he knows you're a good person he can trust.
Awww, look at that happy little face, irresistible!