MAX AND THE BALL

Never have I seen something HOLD an interest in ANY animal (or human) as Max and his ball. Actually ANY ball will do, but tennis balls are the preferred balls above all others. For they are fuzzy, and are easy to carry in the mouth, and slime, and pop, and get that desired wet, soggy, feel to them.

Max will play with balls all day, all night, until his very physical body were to give out. He has had this obsession since he was a pup, any retriever would be put to shame. Ball playing, fetch, has always been used between us for a variety of things. As a reward for good behavior or a job well done, for general play, to use as an ‘enticement’ in training, even a comfort item. Ever since Max was a pup, if a fuzzy tennis ball was held in his mouth (his own doing) it acted almost like a pacifier for him when clipping toe nails, when he got his identification tattoo, anything. Having a ball in his mouth or nearby his person makes Max’s world A-Ok. Nothing can go wrong, everything is tolerable if I am nearby and a ball is nearby. His whole world is a good place. Max even would hold a favored ball in his mouth on those times when we’d lay on the floor facing each other, me talking and massaging his shoulders, he looking deeply into my eyes, occasionally getting silly and pummeling me with his feet or playing “Bulldozer!!!!” (Which consisted of him either flumping down atop me, or using his gigantic head like a great wedge and tunneling under me, while I squealed with laughter, and made a tight ball of my body. Which encouraged him to nudge me more and tunnel more until somehow, with no logical reasoning HE ended up on the bottom and I on top of him. He would wag his nub, look up at me, and ‘splat!’ spit the ball out of his mouth as if saying. “Do it again!”)

So to Max, the ball was THE most integral part of his life. The pivot on which all other things k9 or human revolved around. If a BALL was involved, it had to be good! No bad could come, nothing could be that unpleasant or discomforting, if a slimy, well worn (or popped) tennis ball was in his mouth, or better yet in your hand, ready to be thrown to him.

After all, HOLDING the ball in his mouth was grand, but the whole purpose of holding it was in the hopes that soon, I would be THROWING it to him. This was his heaven. His reward. For me to throw the ball, for him to race out, grab it, bring it back and do it all over again. He was born unto this, it was in his soul. Never once did I ever teach him any of it. And unlike other dogs, it wasn’t JUST the chase of the ball. That was part of it, but the WHOLE game for him was only fun if someone participated WITH him. And I was the preferred participant over all others.

In fact, when he was younger, I often grew tired more quickly than he did. After about a good 20 minutes of throwing, I was nearly pooped out. Max had the most heartbreaking way of trying to re-encourage the game back up. He’d come with the ball, sit, offer it to you. And if you said, “Ok, that’s it. I’m tired. I’ve had enough.” He’d drop the ball at your feet with a rather wet “ffflapp!” and then look at it. Look at it as if he has just coughed up the golden egg. “Look at that would ya?!?!” he’d say with the most intense quizzical look on his face as a dog could muster. He’d then gaze up intensely at me, hopeful. Then back at the ball.

“How’d you suppose THAT got there??” he’d look at the ball, look back at me. Brown eyes boring into me with an intensity that was unmatched, but that laughed with an inner fire beyond compare. Almost like a father playing a game with his favorite young son. “Why it’s a BALL!” he’d look again at the ball, then at me. Head cocked to the side, ears up at alert attention, forehead wrinkled ever so slightly showing the intensity of his thinking.

Of course he was trying to entice me. First with humor, he hoped I would play back, saying, “why, your right! It’s a BALL! Man, where ’d THAT come from?!?!” then pick it up, at which point he be back on all four feet, all alert, his body quivering with excitement. “Why, I wonder what happens if I THROW it!!!!” at which point I would hurl it as far as my body could, and he would shoot after it like a rocket launched from the pad, go get it, and retrieve it with the grace of a seasoned outfielder, then swing around and back to me, where the whole thing would be repeated.

This is what he hoped. If I was to dense, to dumb to get the humor of his, “Well, lookee there! It’s a ball!” game, and were to turn and walk on. Then he’d pick it up, trot a few steps ahead of me, spin back to a perfect sit, facing me, and repeat it again. Again, he’d drop the ball out of his mouth, look at the ball (as if he expected it to launch itself up and out for him to chase) and then look up intently at me, (Well??? Well?? Do you SEE the ball! How can you NOT! There it IS, in front of you, my gods human if you take another step you will trip on it!) If I make no move to bend down and retrieve the slimy, and now dirt and grass coated ‘golden egg’ he resorts to more blunt signals. The play bow. The timeless, ageless non-verbal signals that ALL dogs and puppies give, when they want to play. Front end bowed down; butt up in the air, eyes glaring intently at the ball. Then he stands up, looks at me, and if I still make no move, play bows again. If he’s really wound up, he’ll do a little side-to-side ‘hop!’. As if to say “Come on! Play with me! Play with me! Today won’t be here tomorrow, and I want today, this moment to last forever! Play with me! Play with me!”.

Most days’ I’ll give it one more toss, just to appease him. Because that’s all he ever wants, just one more toss. Some days, he’s so hot, tired, his tongue lolling out the corner of his mouth, so tired and hot that he trembles slightly, but still he elicits me for “One more toss”. If I scoop up the ball, and walk to the house, he follows intently, hoping beyond hope that I am really just ‘tricking him” and getting ready to launch just one more perfect throw for him to sail after. But if I say, “Uh uh. That’s it. In the house.” And he sees me put the ball down, out of his reach, the look that over comes him is truly sad. The ears suddenly droop; the nub no longer wags like a pendulum on a cuckoo clock. The ‘alert’ intense, obsessive look is gone. He is just a tired dog ready to go in the house.

But most days, we play. And play and play some more. The ball has become not a symbol just for him, but for both of us. A bridge, between two species, where we can connect on the most primitive of emotional levels, play. Play and ball is never for training, how can you train “play”? Through the years we have concocted our own versions of the game. Ball throwing has many intricacies, and can involve many types of games. From the straight forward throw and retrieve, to the more elaborate games.
Some of our favorites include the “trick throw” which is I will try and fool him into thinking I am going to throw it one direction (to the right) and try and really throw it to the left or some other place. Sadly, since dogs posses ways of reading other living creatures that humans cannot (the slightest wrong tilt of a shoulder, or the twitch of an eye the wrong way, or heck even ESP), I very rarely ever fool him on that game, but he love it none the less, and occasionally, just occasionally lets me THINK I have fooled him. But I know he is just letting me think that. It’s a whole ‘set up thing’. His way of being ‘nice’ to the two-legged one.

Two of his favorite games (especially when he was younger) was, “Catching on the fly” and “catching on the bounce”. Basically, I throw, and he tries to catch the ball before it lands on the ground. Scooping it up out of mid-air like an adept right fielder. Sometimes he cheats and already gets a running start and is half way down the field. Like he to I, I let him cheat at times. After all, it’s play.

Catch on the bounce, is the same as catch on the fly, only it’s my job to HURL the ball down on the ground as hard as possible so it bounces nice and high, and then he springs, like a gazelle, to snatch it mid-air on the arc of it’s bounce.

There are dozens of variations on the game that we’ve developed over the years. The “tracking” throw, where I throw it low, a “grounder” and he races after it head down, like a terrier hot on the trail of a fleeing rabbit. Sometimes he tries to race ahead and ‘block’ the ball with his forelegs, letting the ball skim from the ground, up his legs and “Plop!” right into his mouth.

One thing that never changes in any of the games is the complete and utter look of joy that is on that dog’s face. His mouth is split in a relaxed grin; his ears are either relaxed back or as alert as if he was listening to whispered voices in a blizzard. His eyes go from the burning flame of intensity and passion while he is waiting for the wind up and the throw, to the look of glazed, prideful contentment as he cups the ball smoothly, effortlessly into his muzzle and swings wide in an easy gallop back to me. During those times he has more peace and contentment in him than the most devout monk. The whole playtime with he and I together is to him, his own ‘religious experience’. A type of dogma and meditation that takes us both to a timeless place, perhaps as old as both our oldest ancestors. Perhaps we are playing with as much contentment and joy and love as the first caveman and his canid, as they tossed around an old giant deer hoof together.

Always I throw, and always he brings it back to me. Always with joy in his eyes. Always I tell him what a good boy he is, even if he misses. Always I smile and act as enthused at the 50th toss as I do the very first toss. Fair is fair. If he is going to play the whole time with the look of utter contentment, joy and nirvana, the least I can do is enjoy it even a half as much as he. For me the real joy is him of course. Watching him, watching his joy, watching that hard muscled back and tan body leap, dive; scoop, race, launch and catch with the grace of all of dog ancestors. The way he races like the wind doing a victory lap around the yard on a particularly hard catch, or the “shake and kill” of his mighty shoulders and neck if he is feeling froggy that day. (You’ve ‘killed’ the ball Max, it’s slimed to death! Good dog! Ok, drop it).

I think he likes watching me too. I know he laughs the way I almost hesitantly pluck at the ball after we’ve thrown it a few times and it’s now slimed, and coated with grass clippings, dirt, you name it. I’ve seen him. His brown eyes dancing with laughter as he either drops the ball into my hand or tosses it right at me. “Hey!!!!” I squawk as the slimy ball bounces off my leg, as I twist to the side to avoid being slimed. I’m never fast enough.

Sometimes obstacles come into play in our games. At the old house, the obstacle was the scraggly woods behind our house. Occasionally the ball would end up there, and Max would diligently sniff, and trail and track and snuffle around until he either found the ball or I called him off. He didn’t know the word “give up.” Balls were sacred to him, and if one was lost he searched the way a devout man might search for divine answers. Usually he found the ball in the woods and under the leaves and branches somewhere. You could usually judge his progress by his nub, for that was often all you could see, as he snuffled and sniffed and bulldozed around in there. As he was looking it was perfectly still, held alert, pointed up, like a radar. Once he was on the trail of it, once he got scent of his ball and was closing in on it, the nub would begin wagging, slowly at first like a slow metronome, but once he found his treasured item, once he was locked onto it, and getting ready to snatch it up and bring it back into play, the nub wagged like a proud banner announcing “Got it! Here it is! See, I wouldn’t let us down!”

There were two obstacles at the old house that Max could not conquer no matter what. One was the roof, and one was the storm drain in front of the house. One of the games we often did, was to toss the ball gently on the roof. The roof sloped ever so slightly; enough that if you tossed it right, it would ride the slope then pop off 10-50’ down. He loved this. Loved using his senses to track the ball as it rolled over the slope, then timed himself to be right under the ball where ever it would drop off the roof. Rarely was he wrong. He always seemed to know right were it was going to drop off, and into his waiting mouth, “SMACK!” the ball always made this satisfying resounding noise as it dropped right into his wet mouth. He loved it. But once in awhile the unforeseeable would happen. Either the ball would get caught on the rain diverter, or worse, my toss would be bad and instead of riding the slope and rolling back down, it would go over the point, and roll down off the FRONT of the house, and then with some unforeseen accuracy it would bounce once and roll into the storm gutter in front of our residence.

Max always looked lost when this happened. He would hear me toss it, run, then get this puzzled look on his face and freeze. It was sad to see him standing there, still as a statue, nose pointed up, mouth slightly agape (JUST in case it suddenly decided to come back). Not moving, waiting, puzzled. While he stood there, waiting, I would take a few steps back to SEE if it was stuck up on the rain diverter. If it was, that was not too bad. We’d just grab a different ball, and then during the next rain, Max would be surprised as the “Ball Fairy” delivered his old balls to him, (usually 3-4) and what a happy boy he was!
More sad was when they went over the house, and into the storm drain. He would always know, because after seeing that it was NOT on the roof I would trudge to the front, and he would come racing by me, (using his nose to find the ball.) once in a blue moon, the storm drain did not get them, and the ball instead rolled into a curb, or better yet bounced up and into the bushes. Max, ever the optimist, always assumed the best and began to sniff, looking for where the ball bounced and trying to track it down that way. You could see him, like the best tracking dog, sniffing, this way and that, back and forth until he caught scent of the ball, and then following it, as he began walking towards the storm gutter you could see his heart sinking. His steps would slow up, the ears would droop, and the nub would stop wagging.

He’d get to the large maw of the storm drain that often housed nasty stuff, debris, roaches, garbage, stray cats, but he did not care. He could smell his ball down there and he knew, not only was it out of HIS reach, but more importantly out of reach of me, his two-legged partner. The anguished look that he would give back over his shoulder was enough to make both our souls feel sad, empty. It was up to me then to quickly bring out the replacement ball and with an excited voice, interest him in that one. He always did of course, excitedly and happily come play with the replacement ball, but like some great ancient dragon, I don’t think Max liked ever losing any of his prized playthings. With a final rather sad look back, he left the storm drain and ran back to the back yard with me, as if saying, “You won this time, but someday, I am going to get them ALL back, ya hear me?”

When we moved into the new house, the one with the in-ground pool: That presented a new obstacle, ‘The Water Hazard’. While Labrador Retrievers might like going in water and swimming and retrieving, Max hated the new pool from the start. He was never a water dog. While he enjoyed walking on the beach shoreline, and even the shorelines of lakes and ponds, pools were scary. I could understand why, the crystal clear water often “fooled” Max’s sense of security. Unlike people, dogs’ depth perception and how they see the world is very different. A pool makes the bottom look very close, and yet it isn’t. Max was never much of a swimmer. He much preferred just ‘getting the feet and belly wet’ but not going in for the whole “dive”. So as a result, whenever we played ball at the new house, and the ball would go into the pool, Max would stare at it balefully. The first few times he tried to stretch out his neck and nose as far as he could, arching, trying to reach the elusive bobbing ball. Then if it got closer he would stretch out a forepaw, trying to hook it and drag it towards him. Usually that didn’t work. Usually the current of the skimmer would catch his prize and begin sucking it towards the side of the pool where the filter/skimmer was. As it got closer to the side, where Max COULD reach, he would try one or two last futile attempts, but he wasn’t brave enough. If he plunged his muzzle into the water and grabbed it like a bear grabbing a salmon, he would have had it, instead, he tried to delicately pluck it from the water, and that was just not the way, with soggy tennis balls and evil skimmers. He would turn and look at me with pleading in his eyes…”Help! You’re the one with that long pole with the thing at the end that can snag these balls out of the water! C’mon, whadda I got to do, to get you to net that ball out for me?”

By now I was laughing so hard, tears were rolling down my cheeks. This bought an even further baleful stare from him. “Alotta help you are. See if I rescue you from that spider again. Harrumph!!!” and Max could harrumph better than any living soul alive. Curmudgeonly men could take lessons from Max’s deep, soulful groans of discontent and disgust at my two-legged ineptness.

Now he tried the “bobbing for apples technique on the ball” trying to thrust his muzzle into the water to snatch it up, but still it would sink just below his snicker snacking teeth. Splash! Splash! CHOMP!
All he got was a mouthful of water. He resorted to the dirty trick then. The undeniable soulful look of “Puppy Eyes”. He would sit and look at me, “Oh…I am so poor, so alone, so devastated. All I want is that ball, nothing else. What a small thing I ask for, and there it floats out of reach. What a cruel master I have for not assisting me in getting that small insignificant yellow, fuzzy object. You’d think with opposable thumbs and your so-called intelligence you would help me out. I am sooo sad and alone. Maybe I will just keel over and die here of a broken heart. Then you wouldn’t be laughing at me would you?”

Max does guilt so well. By now, still chuckling and trying to compose myself, I use my opposable human hand to snatch the wet ball out of the pool and toss it to him.

With a gleam in his eye, he promptly squishes it with all his might in his jaws and shakes it as though it is some living monster with which he must dispatch. Of course this covers me in wet slime as water and sogginess goes everywhere, but especially on me. That will teach me.

With a lively prance he goes off to the green grass, shaking still the ball, a halo of water drops spraying forth from him, sheer delight and aliveness in his eyes. Now it is my turn to “harrumph!” at my water logged clothes and wipe doggy wet drool from my face. I can’t be angry for more than a moment though, soon he prances right back to me to drop the poor lifeless tennis ball at me feet or on my lap, and once again look between the ball and me… “Well lookee there! It’s a ball!!!! Where did THAT come from?” looks at me, such light and intelligence and a glint of humor in his eyes, “Wanna play??”

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This article is used with permission. © 2003 J.D. Ellis rottweilerdriver@aol.com