My boy and his ball

I am beginning to realise that my boy Sym has a closer relationship with his ball than he does with me.

If his ball goes into the long grass or bushes on a walk he will spend ages looking for it, but if I hide from him he tends to wait until Clover and Sox locate me first before he comes for a look.

The good thing about him searching for his ball (and nearly always finding it) is that it saves me money on tennis balls!  On the negative side, when it's raining, he won't leave until he has found it or is dragged away.

I have noticed though that when another dog is near, he will forget his ball all together and leave it somewhere out of sight in order to go and sniff around the other dog.  Then, when 'sniffs' have been exchanged, get back into a "throw the ball for me" position totally forgetting that the ball is still where he dumped it .... and he nearly always dumps it in long grass.

This mornings early walk was no different.  When we met a group of four women and their pooches, he dropped his ball and went to exchange pleasantries.  Sniffing over, I called him back to where he'd last had his ball and told him to find it.  He sniffed and snorted through the grass for about five minutes, unearthing not one, not two, but three tennis balls before turning to me in triumph with a fourth (his own) ball stuck in his mouth.  Now that deserved a bit of cheese and he knew it!

I know lots of people have dogs that are clever and do all sorts of tricks but I think my boy Sym, although he doesn't do all the doggy-dancing or party trick stuff, is pretty smart too.

"throw the ball for me"