The dog has been a treat for the last couple of days.

The dog has been a treat for the last couple of days.  Not sure where to start, let's start from yesterday:

I had finally begun some serious training to get the dog to play "Fetch."  You throw the ball; dog brings back the ball, repeat until you can't stand it any longer.

The biggest issue is, having been raised by cats, she tends to believe that anything she has, finds, or chases after is HERS!  PERIOD!  No more!  You threw away a perfectly good ball, I ran after it and it is now mine.

To combat this, I've been paying her to return the ball.  There's a snack she goes ape for: really, chewy beefy strips.  I cut the strips into small slivers about one inch long and a half inch wide.  It is the perfect currency for paying her to return a thrown ball.

Playing fetch:  First things first.  With the strip firmly inside my closed hand, I have her sniff my fist too confirm I have her payment ready.  Then I throw the ball.  She brings it back, drops it at my feet and gets paid.

Rinse and repeat.

Yesterday the process ran five of the six strips I had for her.  After the fifth one she got into her "it's mine!" mood and laughed at me when I tried to get her to bring me the ball for the final, sixth payment.

When she's in this mood, you cannot approach her because she assumes you want her ball and she's not gonna give it up.  You get within a couple of steps and, with tail wagging, she's off like a shot with the ball in her mouth.  Once a comfortable distance away, she's rolling in the grass, ball firmly in her mouth, tail wagging big time, knowing she's got something everyone wants but only she controls.

Bitch.

LOL.  Literally.

My storage place for the strips during fetch is the front pocket of the gym shorts I wear on my summer day's excursions with her.  When she sees me put these on at home she knows I'm going somewhere and she hopes she coming too.    Even if she gets left behind, it means she gets to spend time outside in a yard that, for her, is the size of a football field (dog to human ration about 8 to 1).

Anyway, yesterday, on the sixth and final throw, she decided she'd rather keep the ball than come for payment.

That's fine.  Game over.

So this morning I get up and the dog is seriously licking and nosing my shorts.  I wear these shorts everywhere and I'm trying to figure out why she's so interested in them.  After a while she's happy and wandering off.  At best she has licked my shorts clean; I wear them while eating, maybe she was taking out the crumbs.  Her licking the shorts that much may indicate it's time to do some washing.  At worst she chewed up the shorts and they are now holey and I'll have to get new ones.

Later, as I'm preparing for today's trip to the park, I'm thinking I still have one strip left and it suddenly strikes me as to why the dog was interested in my shorts this morning!

She has an EXCELLENT nose.  She smelled the remaining strip and figured out how to reach into the pocket and get the last strip form yesterday.

Sure enough, all that's left of the last strip is the soggy paper towel it was wrapped in.

Shift to the trip to the park later that day.  After the first throw and return she's suddenly playing keep away.  She will not bring the ball to me no matter what and she's happy about it, tail wagging and laughing in my face, rolling the grass just out of reach with HER ball!

Curious, I link into her and suddenly discover what's happening.  See, she's seen me reaching into the pocket of the shorts for the next chew snack in our fetch sessions.  This morning she confirmed WHERE the snacks come from: the pocket of the shorts.  Suddenly I'm persona non grata.  She don't need to do this "pay off" crap no more because she's discovered the source of the strips!  When she gets home, she's going straight for the source as soon as I am out of the shorts!  She don't have to do this "fetch" crap no mo'!

So at the park she's got the ball, she knows where the strips comes from and later she's gonna get all the strips I was going to force her to earn.  Yeah, the fetching crap is done.  She spends the entire time at the park laughing at me, playing with her ball, TOTALLY in control of EVERYTHING!

We get home, I toss the shorts and sure enough she casually wanders over when she thinks I'm not looking and begins sniffing.

BUT WAIT!  There's … There's no snacks!  The source is empty!  There are NO chew strips in the shorts.

Turns out as soon as master got home, he pulled the strips and stored them for a future trip to the park.

Damn.

She blew the whole park trip assuming she's figured out how to get the paycheck without all the work.  (She's a lot like her master at times.)  Now she's got nothing, chew strip-wise.

Me?  Now I'm the one smiling, rolling on the floor, my tail wagging.  Master has proven why he's the Master and she's the Dog.  Dog thought she'd figured out life, Master taught her life more complex than she thought.

It will be interesting to see if she completes the full fetch session on the next trip to the park.

LOL!

My name is Sielow and these are my words.

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