esrosedotblog

BUSTED!

So I think you know the story of the tennis balls.

We moved across the street from a tennis club and the people hit the balls over the fence all the time. We have three tennis courts in the complex. Same thing. Balls over the fence.

Booker has discovered this. Some days, we must walk over to the tennis club to see if they have hit any over. Often they have. He takes the ball home.

It is a trophy. It is HIS. He messes with it all night off and on.

I try not to go past the tennis club first because, if he finds a ball, he will want to take it home to his living room. The place for all trophies and toys. So much for the walk.

He has about 40 balls now. A few more than any Airedale needs.

Our friend Randy is a teacher. He has a game that he does with the kids at recess which is like dodge ball since dodge ball is no longer part of the school curriculum. Another depredation of the move to shelter kids. (I hated the game, was not good at it and was always smashed with it. So I get the idea of banning it).

Anyway, Randy runs out of balls because they get thrown all over.

I am going over to Long Beach in a week and so I went and picked out 20 balls today, bagged them and put them on my luggage in the hall closet. A slider door.

A little while ago, 12 hours after they were stowed away, Booker barked at me. He was standing at the sliders. He had that look. Aimed at the closet interior. He smelled them!

He barked again. I opened the door. He went right to the bag. He was going to take the bag out of the closet. Insistent.

I got the bag out and took it back to the toy box. Undid the bag and put the balls back in the box.

He went with me and, I swear, counted them into the toybox and then followed me when I took the plastic bag to the trash to make sure it was empty.

This is why he is a good watchdog. The smeller is incredible.

We have seen this, actually, around the tennis court here in the complex or at the tennis court. He will smell a ball hidden in a bush and go looking for it. From yards away.

Booker. The biggest collection of balls in Palm Springs.

I suppose that I will wait until the morning I leave and, at the last minute, abscond with the balls, run to the Volvo and tear away on to Long Beach.

Or, just forget it.

He brought a ball home today that he found on the way home.

You might wonder whether he needs these balls at all.

Well, he needs some of them. He plays for quite a while bouncing, dribbling and catching it in his mouth. It is quite something to see especially with our primitive heavy tile floor where the bounce is not very predictable. His mouth/eye coordination is very sharp as he bounces it and gets it into his teeth almost every time.