Deliriously ...

... deliriously happy that is!

When back in February the Vet told us, that Denny had to loose some weight, I knew it would not be easy, because this is the laziest dog ever. Sure, he likes to chase birds (fat chance of succeeding), he likes to be chased by the others, but they don't indulge him in this too often. While the others fetch whatever I throw them, until their tongues hit the ground, he'd rather ly in the shade, chewing on the thing I threw for him, watching the planes fly by.

Sure, he likes to swim, but only to cool off, no full length swim for him, just a little loop around the shallow part of the pool. So I don't think he's lost a single gram so far (he likes to eat, and is good in finagling extra treats).

So, what I'm so happy about then?

Three days ago, somebody, somehow, somewhere threw a switch. The thing is, when we are not all outside together, I take them outside one by one, to play with them individually. I do a little bit of training in the process. It's easy to do this with Happy and Maggie, since they die for a thrown Frisbee, or tennis ball. They do just about anything for it.
With Denny however, I could throw whatever, and he might have run after it once, but never brought it back. How to get him motivated, or moving? So I walked all over the backyard, and he followed me around, chewing on a ball , or whatever he could find.

So, three days ago, he watched me playing with the others, through the glass door (as many times before). When it was his turn, he came charging outside, sitting in front of me, barking his little head off. I had a couple of balls in my hands, since I knew he would just take of with the first one I threw. But to my amazement he came back with it, and in a straight line, no detours, just a straight forward fetch and retrieve. Wow!

But would he give the ball up? He sat in front of me, tennis ball in his mouth, chewing. I showed him the other ball, and he spit his one out so fast, that it bounced past me. I asked him in a very excited voice, "Do you want it?", and he barked shrilly, so I threw it, picked the other one up, and as soon as he was back, we did it all over again.

Now, I thought he might do it maybe five time, after ten times, it was incredulous, and when he still had not enough, I could just not believe it!

I told him finished (that's how we stop our games, with an accompanying hand signal), while he was still hot for our game, and we went inside. A fluke, I thought.

Of course I wanted to know if he would do it again, and to my surprise each time the last few days, he played fetch with me, like never before.

So, what changed? Any ideas?

Here's my little dumpling. Proud to have conquered the chair once again, since the dog bed was occupied (not that he would not get Happy to leave, if he felt like it).







But then, I'm not always so proud of him. He's still "Denny the Destroyer" around here. He likes to steal things from my desk, mostly the pattern pages I'm working with at the moment. Here's another test knit in the works.