***COUNTDOWN: 5 DAYS TO LA/XC-6***
Yay! Finally! After 16 years of dog ownership — 11 with Ricky the Beagle and 5 with Kemba — I’ve won my first battle of wills!!! (Obviously, if this was ever going to happen, you knew it would have to be with my eager-to-please, up-for-anything red duck dog . . . and not with my good old “It’s my way or the highway” Beagle.)
Though Kemba will probably never tire of fetching tennis balls in the ocean or the sound or a lake, he does like to mix it up, every so often, with a new and novel toy. So I got him one of those Chuckit! brand bumper-and-rope thingies — the kind you can grip by the short rope, wind up, and fling way out into the water. Kemba instantly became obsessed with this new blue-and-orange sensation. I could whip the thing half way to Port Jeff, and he’d eagerly paddle out, snap up the bumper in his jaws, paddle back, drop it at my feet, shake-a-shake off the water — and then look up at me with his “more, please” face. He loved this game. We did it again and again and again and again. Every morning. For over three weeks.
And then one day last week, after maybe five fetches (we usually do, I’d say, about 80 to 100), he spotted a small log on the stretch of Compo Beach off Soundview, where we typically hang out. Not a stick; a log. Thick and somewhat rotted — the better to sink his teeth into. Yes, this was a perfect one, nice and juicy. The kind of log that, for Kemba, trumps everything.
He stared at the log, then stared up at me. Back and forth went his eyes. Of course, I knew exactly what he wanted. Trouble is, I’d already lofted the bumper about 30 yards out into the water . . . and there it still floated. “No, Kemba,” I said. “We need that bumper.” I pointed to it. “I’ll throw the log for you after you bring back the bumper.” He continued to look at the log, then up at me, with those big, black, pleading eyes. And added to this his usually fool-proof tilty-head move.
I wasn’t buying. “Kemba,” I repeated. “We need that bumper.” I mimed as if to throw it again, toward where it now bobbed, just in case he couldn’t see it. He knew exactly where it was, though — but he wouldn’t make a move toward it. Instead, he just sat at attention, his laser eyes boring a hole in that log. Had it been a tennis ball stranded out there, I might have said, “Go get it! You know, tennis balls don’t grow on trees.” (Except that they kinda do; see photos, left.) But eventually I would have thought, screw it — and would have given in and thrown him the log. The bumper, though, was a different story. I’d ordered it for him special. It’s not like I had dozens of them back at the house.
The Mexican standoff lasted a good five minutes. Then I had an idea. I went for his leash, which I’d been wearing draped around my neck, and made as if to put it back on him. As in, we’re going home. The jig was up, and he knew it. With little hesitation he swam out resignedly to where the bumper had drifted, and brought it back. I clapped for him as if he’d just hit a walk-off homer in the World Series, and showered him with so many “Good boy!’s” you’d think he’d won a blue ribbon for Best in Show. Of course, he then trotted eagerly right over to the log — which I lifted up and heaved into the water, endlessly, till he’d fetched his fill.
I didn’t want to draw a flag for excessive celebration, so I didn’t gloat. But inwardly, I exulted. It was a rare victory, but a sweet one.
LOOK FOR THE FREQUENCY OF BEAGLE MAN POSTS TO PICK UP A BIT AFTER I HIT THE ROAD FOR LA/XC-6 AT THE END OF NEXT WEEK. YOU CAN ALSO FOLLOW MY TRAVELS ON FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM.
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