Double the fun!

The one big thing that has always kept Secret from expressing her inner disc-dog superstar (aside from the fact that she seems to have major issues "playing" away from home) has been her complete refusal to play with more than one disc at a time. I'm pretty sure this stemmed from the early lessons of, "This is Luke's frisbee; this is your frisbee; you only play with your frisbee." I did try early on to get her to play with more than one disc and it's always been a no-go.

We did work on it a bit last year and over the winter again. We actually progressed to the point where Secret would grab a frisbee out of my hand (the lesser-valued one of the day) and then her reward was that I'd throw the one she wanted. She always, always expressed a very clear preference for one disc over another -- but it didn't matter which one it was; that could always change from one session to the next. Typically whichever one was shown to her first was the the one she claimed as her frisbee for the day.

Tonight I had to be very, very mean to Secret. Luke and Kaiser had a vet appointment at 4:00, so I left Secret at home by herself. I'm pretty certain this might be the first time I've actually done that. Knowing that she would likely not be very pleased about the scenario, I decided to squeeze in a quick game of solo frisbee with her before we left (didn't want Luke all hot and panty for his appointment anyhow).

I'm not entirely sure why I grabbed two frisbees, but I did. And surprise, surprise! The finicky one was happy to play with both of them! Over and over again! I tell you, it made for a nice fast workout for her since there was no down time. Run, get frisbee, run back, drop, run after new frisbee, run back, etc. Sweet deal, this could be a bonus! A more tired border collie in a shorter amount of time. Well, it's all relative; we all know she recharges in 10 minutes regardless... Which is why she got to play again when we got home.

I guess now we can resume our dream of being world champion disc dog stars.  Maybe first I should work on taking our show on the road so that she will actually play in other locations... More than likely her disc dog career will make it as far as her dock jumping career. Some things are better off left to play and not competition, I guess.

My parent's dogs are coming to hang out with us tomorrow. Fingers crossed that nobody eats anybody and that everyone gets along. I'm going to mow the back yard, so they can all hang out together outside while I do that -- and I'll return a green Westie to my parents.  :o)