Bye Bye, Ball!

Yesterday afternoon, I witnessed one of the most heartbreaking things.

One day, our driver gave Odie a tennis ball that he picked up from the nearby tennis court. I'm guessing it was one of those spare practice balls that people don't care about. He had loads of fun playing with it, and due to its bounce, I also used it to practice having him fetch it. I read somewhere that a tennis ball is not a very advisable toy for pets, so I kept it in a safe place and rarely brought it out.

I was trying to play tug with Odie yesterday afternoon, but he kept looking in a particular direction for an unknown reason. Moments later, I found out that the ball was hidden behind the plants in our front yard. When he retrieved the ball, he started bouncing it around and running wherever it went. I played a bit of fetch with him afterwards. The third time I asked him for a fetch, he gave me the ball, took the treat, and immediately grabbed the ball from my hand and played with it by himself. The ball then slid towards the gap between our small gate and the floor, causing him to panic!

He saw the ball from the fence and kept barking, so I did what I could to get the ball back. Sadly, I came back to him without the ball. He saw it rolling downhill and into oblivion. Odie began to cry.

He kept howling and crying while looking at the place where the ball rolled, as if in despair about what just happened. Seeing him lose a toy and not being able to do anything about it made me feel like the worst human ever. I cried with him, and we sat together on the front porch. I gave him a hug, some treats, and told him that life is unfair, that there are some things we really have no control over, no matter what we do. He just looked at me with his most beautiful puppy eyes which made me cry some more.

I shared the incident with a friend who told me that I have a very smart and sensitive dog. I guess he's right. I don't know where Odie got the smart, but sensitive may have come from me. But like any unfortunate event, the best thing to do is to process it, learn from it, accept it, and move on.

The next best thing to do is to buy Tuff Mint Balls or Kong Air Squeaker Balls and make sure none of them goes away.