We went back to Queen's Park today. Yesterday Zebedee stole another dog's tennis ball and wouldn't give it back. For about 15 minutes. No matter what. It gets really embarrassing when the owner of the ball stands next to you waiting for you to get the bloody ball back from your disobedient dog, so that they can carry on playing with their dog. I try ignoring Zebedee, I try tricking him, I get angry and try shouting... errr... like THAT is going to work, either. And he's not going to let go of the stolen ball. Not until HE gets bored with it.
Anyway, yesterday I decided that I'm not taking him out to a park without taking some treats with me. Treats to bribe him with. (In fact, I was going to take a spare ball with me, too, but I couldn't get into the frozen car where the balls were). It was all going well with the treats: Zebedee ran back to me every time I called. He even ran back to me after he'd stolen a stick from another dog, and let go of it when I said "swap" (I get stick, he gets treat). "Great!" I thought. What an obedient, cute little darling of a dog! Now we can have fun without embarrasment! Yes, until he got hold of a squidgy ball. It was more valuable than his treats. It was game time again. "Catch me if you can!" And the owner of the ball wanted his dog's toy back... So I try ignoring... try bribing... try ignoring again... try sending an aggressive dog on him...
Good grief. Frustrating. Infuriating. But, the owner did get his special ball back at the end. After about 10 minutes and about 20 little bites that came off the ball while in Zebedee's possession. People were watching and laughing. I couldn't stand the shame so I decided to leave the park and walk to the seafront. On ice. With sore feet. Angry. As. Hell. Then back home. Even more sore.
At the bottom of the steep hill that we have to get up in order to get home, there were four fire engines and the police. There had been an accident. When I got closer I saw that half way up the hill there was a small lorry diagonally across the street, facing down. The nose of the lorry was touching the wall of a pub. It looked like the driver had forgotten to get out of his lorry before going into the pub. Well, what can you expect, eh? Driving down a steep hill which is packed with frozen snow, like an ice rink. With summer tyres. How can people be so ignorant of the nature of ice on roads?
Photos:
Detail from above.
Straight into the Geese pub...
Oh well, let's end the day with a lovely little snow penguin.
Oh, and all was well again when we got home to a lovely dinner Miles had cooked. :)
And as soon as I can, I'm going to teach Zebedee to play "chase" on cue, rather than whenever HE wants to. Wish me luck.
(Here's a little video of Zed playing with other dogs at the park Youtube video)
1 comment:
*laugh* Good luck! Poor Zeb. Poor YOU! It's so hard to deal with them when it turns into play for them.
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