Determining a pup’s preferred sport entails trial and error. Some want to leap and catch, others chase, some expect the toy to “fight back” or make noise. A pup I named Casey because he showed early signs of catching a ball became fanatic about flying frisbees. My current pup ignores frisbees, but vibrates with anticipation at sight of his amber ball.
When this pup arrived, he tested all the used toys lying about. He exhibited mild interest in an orange hockey ball, no interest whatever in the frisbee, but busied himself gnawing the remnants of a small yellow football.
I soon found he delighted in the rattle and resistance of plastic, whether it was greenhouse plastic, 20 gauge clear boat window, or polyethylene tarp, whether orange or green.
He never tires of playing tug-of-war with me. Left alone, he flings the plastic from side to side for the sound and tussle, until I fear his neck will need the ministrations of a chiropractor.
He revealed his penchant for plastic by yanking loose a six foot square of green tarp keeping dry a pile of scrap lumber. He would gallop around the yard, trailing his frayed veil, pleased to amuse himself, but absolutely giddy if I tromped on it, somersaulting him. If I tried to catch it, his teeth clamped on my hand.
Whenever I appeared in the yard he would fetch his amber ball and drop it at my feet. Four inches in diameter, it is air-filled, gentle on my toes and big enough so I can kick it with no risk of stubbing my toes into the ground. Usually I kicked it for him until he lay down to rest.
One October afternoon we lost the ball among leaves of a similar colour. No amount of searching turned it up. The only toy he had left was the green tarp which had lost a thread or chunk here and there until it was too small to satisfy him or to be safe for me to tug away from him. So I went shopping for a replacement ball. Easier said than done in October.
Balls were no longer available at Walmart, Dollar Store, or Canadian Tire. I went so far as to ask a daycare if they had a ball I could buy. They did, two of them, but neither fit my criteria. A tennis ball is like a file on a dog’s teeth, Brad the Dog Guy says. And a football is too big and too rigid for many dogs to grip unless it is partially deflated.
Finally, at the Salvation Army outlet I was shown a hockey puck (too hard for my toes, or the pup’s teeth if he caught it in mid-air) and a resilient mid-sized green football. The football fit my criteria.Arriving home, I held the football out to the pup. His face lit up, “That’s for me?” He clamped his small jaws on a ridge in the football and scuttled off.
By the time I had unloaded groceries, chunks of green foam littered the driveway. I had failed to realize the football was moulded from foam. I knew from experience how he relished anything he could rip apart. In less than two hours he had disemboweled a stuffed reindeer given to him as a comfort toy by the SPCA.
I mulled what to try next. It had to be safe for him to chew, satisfy his pet forms of activity, remain visible and workable in snow, and not threaten my safety as his clear plastic had done once snow covered the ground.
Given that tug-of-war ranks #1 on his playlist, I presented him with a narrow, seven foot long strip of boat top fabric. Tightly woven of acrylic, boat top fabric can withstand extreme stresses even when punctured. It was love at first sight. My pup raced off towing the fabric strip like a rhythmic gymnast’s rippling ribbon. It floats on snow and being forest green, is easy to find.
Sometimes he tries to bury the strip in a snowbank, a manoeuvre as fruitless as attempting to stuff a live lobster in a pail. Whenever I walk out the door he gathers it into a heap daring me to wrestle it from him.