One of our newer routines consists of going to Bellwoods (not new), locking ourselves in one of the tennis courts, and playing fetch. This accomplishes two things: one, it allows Mama Mimi to chase sticks while two, not allowing the same Mama Mimi to run away when I call her. Because she’s fenced in. Brilliant.
Did I think of this myself? Yes. No. I saw someone doing it with her dog and went ahead and stole the idea. In fact, the first time I did it that same girl showed up with her dog but was forced to use the neighboring (and in all ways inferior) court next to us. Sucker.
This is a particularly awesome situation because the last time Darkness played fetch with me she constantly ran away (I may have wrote about this…) when I called to her. One of the ways I’m trying to combat this is to instill the fear of god in her. This is not hard to do because she is already quite paranoid of everyone she doesn’t know in the outside world. What I noticed yesterday was that if I yelled “HEY!” and sprinted towards her, she would drop the stick and run in fear. I found this funny for about 1.3 seconds but I quickly called for her to come mainly to assure her I wasn’t about to beat her. I have never beat her. Yet. The problem with beating her is that she’s just too petite to be beat. Don’t get me wrong, she deserves to be beat approximately 3-34 times per day but alas, I don’t think it will ever happen. Anyway, the Hey/Sprint technique worked consistently yesterday and today, we graduated to simply me saying “HEY!” followed by her instantly dropping the stick and sitting down. She was so good at it today that one might think, “man, that guy must beat his dog. She’s so well-behaved.” But, as you all know, I do not beat her. Yet.
The other benefit of Tennis Court Fetch is that running on concrete trims her nails. Go figure. It works so well that I’m considering using it for myself. God. What a stupid thing to write.
