Playing with Fire

Dogger had the best time evah at the park today. There is this good old boy that comes up there to shout at his dog ”CHESTER! CHESTER! Use your INDOOR VOICE BOY! RETRACT YOR TEETH NOW SON!” . Poor Chester. That old boy lurves him his dawg, but damn, I don’t think the dawg makes half the noise his daddy does. His daddy also likes to preach! He hates George W. Bush almost, but not quite as much as he loves his dawg. I feel him on that, really, but damn, must he hate on George at the top of his sizable lungs? The old boy doesn’t weigh but about 140 lbs., but I think a good, 75, 80 of that is lung. He can project like a son-of-a-bitch. I hate Shrub too, but damn, ya’ll don’t know! If you arrive at the park and see his car in the lot, it’s a good idea to make sure you come into the park on your phone and stay there, it’s the only way to avoid him and whatever his sermon for the day is.

Anyway, The old boy brought a buddy with him and that buddy was there to play with the dawgs. And he had the energy of a 15 month old puppy. He played tug with whomever would play with him and I’m pretty sure he won! And he wasn’t playing with cocker spaniels and Jack Russell’s either, but wouldn’t that be cute? No, he was playing at various times with Dogger, his buddy’s Shepard mix, an Irish wolf hound mix, a black lab/Honda cross and a very tenacious young golden retriever. So he was pretty much playing tug of war with a tow truck with very competitive teeth.

The dogs loved it! They were sooo happy! And were having the best dog time ever. They were working together, they were co-operating. They were a doggy team. Dogger will be dreaming about it for weeks.

They would get distracted - to be a dog is to be distractible, one of the dogs, a huge black lab/Honda mix , let go when he heard the St. Augs band warming up, another dog fell out because another dog on the other side of the park might have seen a squirrel and Dogger periodically forget what she was doing.

All the while the old boy keep hollering at his friend Don’t let them re-grip! Don’t let them re-grip! I worked with a guy and he lost two fingers that way! Don’t let them re-grip! and his buddy kept saying “That’s all right! I don’t need more than seven or eight to get around!”

I think the old buy needed to stop talking at his friend, he needed to keep his complete attention to playing with the dogs. I mean, the dogs can only stay on task for so long, but while they are? They aren’t playing, you are playing, they are answering the call of the wild. They will hurt you. Especially if you are playing with a number of them. They aren’t playing tug with a soccer ball, they are trying to get their share of the kill. You stick your puny little hand in there at your own risk. If a person is going to play with the big dawgs, they had better come prepared to be the bigger dawg. I’ve “played” with Dogger when she wasn’t and I have the scars to show for it. You always have to keep in mind that while you are smarter, and you brought the toy, they are stronger and they invented the game.