Newfie vs. Rottweiler

Thatcher and cousin Blaise (my sister's dog) have become pretty even-matched competitors in the game "fetch". Newfies are not known for their speed, and Blaise is a petite, agile Rottweiler. She's quick like a cheetah and can outrun Thatcher nine times out of ten. But Thatcher has one strength that Blaise lacks - he watches where you are throwing the ball. Blaise gets so excited with the anticipation of the chase that she forgets to keep an eye out on what direction you're launching the ball in. She usually sprints ahead, then remembers to look for the ball. Thatcher, on the other hand, holds off on his full gallop until he sees which way your arm is pointing towards. The ironic part is that unless both dogs are chasing the ball, neither is. Whenever I try playing fetch with Thatcher alone, or even Thatcher and Boden together, he gets bored after a few tosses. Thatcher and Blaise thrive on trying to beat each other, and can keep going dozens of times when together. Poor Boden is neither fast enough or focused enough to stand a chance with either of the older dogs, so we play a little game of mini-fetch with him on the side between tosses for Thatcher and Blaise.

The aftermath

Morning at the park

Walked to the park with the dogs this morning. While I froze in the brisk 30 degrees, they frolicked around the baseball and soccer fields without a care in the world. They love running after tennis balls and playing keep-away from each other. When I play fetch with them, I have to make them take turns, otherwise Thatcher dominates that ball and doesn't let it out of his grasp. I first throw the ball as far as I can for Thatcher and let him bring it back. Then I hold his collar and roll the ball about half that distance for Boden to go chase. Boden picked up on fetching really quickly and usually brings the ball back perfectly. Except when he knows Thatcher is waiting for it. In that case, he'll dance around Thatcher, taunting him with the ball. I'm surprised at how well Boden is able to hold onto the ball, before Thatcher flat out tackles him to the ground to take it back. 

The dog days

Eventful weekend. On Saturday we took a 4 hour road trip to visit some of my family. Thatcher came along and loved it. He's an angel in the car, besides the dirt and drool he spreads all over the backseat. His favorite position is to squeeze his head onto the armrest between the driver and front passenger seats. He has to be as utterly close to us as possible. When he was younger, he would often climb onto my lap up front. I have no idea why we allowed this, but he was little and cute back then. So occasionally he'll still try to clamber up front, not realizing that he's no longer the 20 lb ball of fur he used to be. It definitely has made people driving next to us do a double-take, when they see this huge black dog squeezed onto my lap and all hunched over in the passenger seat. 

Rainbow on the car ride home

When we arrived at my family's, Thatcher got to run around and play with their two puppies. By run around and play with, I mean he followed them around hopefully while they pretended he didn't exist.  They are a four-month-old brother and sister pair who have never been separated from each other. They literally live in their own little world. They would start wrestling, and Thatcher would gleefully race over to them and try to get in on the action. But they would just ignore him. Poor fellow.

Yesterday we "discovered" an amazing dog park. It's seven acres of woods and trails right along the river. Swimming + tromping through woods + lots of other dogs = Thatcher in heaven. Sometimes I feel bad for him, because he tries to play with other dogs and they don't always want anything to do with this big, goofy giant. He's too slow to have a chance at fetch with the retrievers, too large to play wrestle with the rambunctious dogs, too oblivious to pick up signals when another dog is feeling threatened by him. He still loves it though. A person there was throwing a tennis ball into the river for his lab to fetch. Thatch beat the lab to the ball once, but then the ball disappeared. We were all looking around for it, before we realized that it was hiding in Thatcher's mouth for the last five minutes.