Those Crepuscular Beasts Again

SUMMARY: What gorgeous weather! Play play play, rest a bit, have a big dinner, then play play play some more. Dang herding dogs and their energy reserves!

Because of my score table activities, Jake and Boost spent most of the weekend in crates at the trial site. But we finished very early on Sunday, probably by 2:00, and my car was packed and ready to go by 3:30, so I took all three out to the now-empty field with a couple of frisbees. Even Jake wanted to play--he's been turning me down rather a lot lately--but he was good for only about four tosses and then instead of coming back he jetted off to the side of the field to drop the frisbee in the weeds and start sniffing his way to the far end of the field ("If I don't look at you, I can't hear you, remember I'm deaf!"). So Tika played frisbee and tug all the way down to the other end, with Boost chasing her, until I caught up to Jake.

Then Jake pooped and was interested in playing again, then we played frisbee most of the way back up the field, with Tika's ADD (which kicks in when she's starting to get tired) starting to show, where she chases the frisbee full out, catches it, runs a few yard, drops it, and then comes back to me to see whether anything interesting is happening. Then when I started to collect my dogs, Tika and Jake ran off and lay down in the shade of someone's truck parked on the field, and Boost took off after a puppy who was off leash, and the two of them chased each other in delerious circles, BOTH ignoring their owners' calls to come, until we each managed to corral our beasts. At which point Boost thought that lying in the shade was agood thing, too.

All three dog tongues were lolling out the sides of their mouths about three feet. Pant pant pant. I walked them slowly and tenderly back to the car to cool them down a wee bit, loaded them in, chatted with some friends (fortunately I have many :-) ) for a while, drove home (including slow traffic for a ways plus a stop at the Gilroy Outlet Center for fudge that I didn't need but really wanted), got home maybe 5:30.

It was so lovely outside! I just sat on the porch for a few minutes, enjoying it. Then showered and finally fed the dogs. 6:00. They now have full stomachs. They had a really nice probably 20-minute full-out running jag only about 2 hours ago. And what did they want to do when I strolled out to the yard for some casual, light-weight yardwork (checking spa chlorine and such) on this gorgeous spring evening? Play ball! Even Jake hung around looking hopeful, wagging his tail and glacing meaningfully at the Toy Bin.

I told them, "you just had dinner, you're going to throw up if you start running!" but they didn't care. So I threw toys for them, just not as intensely as normally; maybe 10 or 15 feet each time instead of hauling all the way across the yard. And lots of gentle ground-level tug-of-war and play in between. Still, they all wanted to keep going til their tongues were hanging out, and then I made them quit. Never did throw up so far's I know.

So tell me, does having a full stomach make YOU want to go outside on a warm evening and run as fast as you can around the yard? Dang crepuscular beings.

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