Pooch Cafe by Paul Gilligan for August 23, 2020

Stupid human thinks Poncho can walk on water.

Humans throw sticks, dogs fetch sticks. That’s their nature, which they both are incapable of overcoming, though the rowboat is a start.

Poncho said "No way Chazz today is not bath day "

My little dog wouldn’t chase mere sticks… she held out for tennis balls.

She loved to chase those… but the “fetch” part was lost on her.

She’d run after one, grab it… and keep on running..

looking back now and then, waving it in her teeth, in an obvious effort to get me to chase her, to get it back.

 

I’d call her and call her… but only when she got bored with my not giving chase, she’d drop the ball and come racing back without it.

Then she’d stand there in front of me, waiting to see whether I’d throw another one.

Guess who had to go fetch them so we’d have any.

 

After years of training, she started to get that I wanted her to bring the ball back…

So she’d run towards me… only to play keep-away with the ball in her teeth…. …

darting off with it again, if I reached towards her.

I tried to train her to “drop it” … but no treats or rewards were more appealing to her than keeping the ball.

 

By the time she was ten or so, she would sometimes drop a ball somewhere near me, but only if feigned nonchalance….

I had to look the other direction, and make no immediate attempt to pick it up.

 

I seldom had to wonder which of us was the trainer.

Subconscious payback?

My pooch would fetch sticks or balls tossed into the creek behind my house until she could barely pull herself out of the water. And then she wanted me to throw it again.

I think if I threw a rock into the water she’d try to find it for me (she’d get frustrated trying to retrieve snowballs).

Yeah. Now that I think of it, Poncho’s little legs would make a doggie paddle take forever.

The mouth on that dog!

I guess he’s not a retriever. They love to swim out and get stuff; it’s what they were bred to do.

At least he’s fetching . . .

Poncho can’t swim?

I agree. Considering dry land stretches beyond view why did he think one specific fellow wanted to heave-ho to retain it?

It would have been funnier if it was Chaz rowing out to get it.

Well at least he’s getting exercise.

Gilligan SO needs a class on anatomy….There, I feel better for finally mentioning this.