Leo now has some competition over the tennis ball!

I was a bit worried that when Sadie arrived I would have fights over the tennis ball. Leo has been showing a bit too much aggression. He has been bullying the other dogs like he does his little sister. I found that as long as he was shagging down tennis balls he would leave the other dogs alone.

I have taken him on a couple of leased walks just to point out to him that he is no higher in the ranks than any other dog and that seemed to have helped.

But, I have Sadie coming and she might be even a bit more obsessed with tennis balls than Leo. She is also faster and better than Leo in retrieval of balls. This could get ugly, but I am relying on the shear number of tennis and racquet balls I have to throw. Leo it turns out can't let a ball go when there is another dog that can and will get it. So I had my solution, Leo gets the first ball and keeps it in his mouth. He still chases after anything thrown but he can't beat Sadie to it and with a ball in his mouth he can't get mad about it either. So we had a great game of fetch every time they were out for the past few days.

My arm is getting sore and my glove is a muddy mess.

We even had Gunda join in and she is giving Sadie a run for her money. Those two really race for the ball but they have no problem with who returns it. That is the sign of a good dog.

I have Lucky arriving on Saturday. And he is more obsessed with tennis balls than Sadie and he might even be faster. This should be a interesting weekend. I'd better patrol the outside of the kennel for all the racquet balls that have gotten away. There should be 9 not 1 of them. I am going to need more ammo.

Big Brothers and Little Sisters

I have two sets of big brothers and little sisters. As I mentioned yesterday, Leo does really want to play with Molly (he wants to play fetch), but there is no way he will let his sister have any fun without him.

I now have the same situation just substitute Chico for Leo and Sophie for Molly.

And of course, it is Molly and Sophie that want to play together. I have to ride herd on the boys to get the girls any kind of playtime.

I figure now that they have found a girl friend, the boys are going to have a harder time breaking them up. We will have to see how it goes today.

Well, This was a Pretty Good Weekend

We had a great group of dogs that all played well together and no photos to prove it, as I can still not find the camera.

Molly and Leo came back and Leo is still acting the big brother, which means he is annoying his little sister to no end. Whenever Molly finds a dog to play with, Leo gets put out and has to break it up. He tried this last time with Molly and Tinker, but they were just too determined to have fun and they just ignored him.

I found the solution to getting Molly out from under Leo's watchful eye. Leo likes to play fetch and he even brings the ball back to me, so the game was on. Leo is a bit too serious about fetch. Once when BB swooped in and stole the ball, I thought Leo was going to take a chunk out of her. BB seems to have realized the same thing, because I have never seen her NOT swoop in a steal a ball like she did all weekend. Not single other time to Leo or anyone else for that matter.

Tessie who has never shown an interest in balls other than to steal them to get chased suddenly joined the game and gave Leo a run for his money. She even brought the ball back to me. This is a huge transformation in Tessie. I did try my 'dog whisperer' technique of taking Tessie for a leased walk around the kennel. It really seemed to calm her down, but how in the world did it give her an interest in fetch and teach her the rules at the same time. Another 'Doggie Miracle'