Dog days

I took my dog Daisy down to the gully for a nice walk and swim last night. I figure I should make the best of the nice weather and the quickly waning evening sunlight. She absolutely loves to swim and play ball in the water. Her problem is that she doesn't really understand playing ball. She stands there, eagle eyed, watching the person tossing the ball, chases and grabs it (this is the part she gets!), but she does not understand the part about bringing it out of the water to me so that it can be thrown again. She often drops the ball in the water, lets the current take it down stream a little ways, then pounces on it again, then eventually she looses interest and the ball floats down stream. This is why I bother to bring never bring a ball to the creek.

So unless we happen to find stray ball (not uncommon actually) Daisy horns in on the other dogs ball games. Last night she joined a golden that had new sort of game. It had a broken tennis ball, that sank, instead of floated. This dog was so fun to watch. Huge, dynamic, splashy leaps in the water to retrieve it's ball. Daisy tried to join, but was beat the ball every time. The other dog was a hoot to watch; she felt around the bottom of the creek with her two front paws, and once she got the ball under control she stuck her head in and grabbed it. In spots the water deep enough that I can't imagine it could see the ball, yet it still found it every time. What a hoot! Poor Daisy tried to play the game, the few times she beat the other dog to the ball you could see her feel around with her paws, and stick her head under, but she never came up with anything. Didn't stop her from trying though, she LOVES the game. We left the creek before the other dog, and every time we'd get about 25 feet away Daisy would look back, see the man tossing the ball, and run back to play some more. As big of a "momma's dog" as she is I was surprised at her choosing a ball game over me!