Little Miss Daisy

Here is our Little Miss Daisy, trying on her new dress. She could have cared less about the dress. All she wanted was to fetch her 'ball'. That's what her eyes are on right now in the picture above. She never tires of running after her ball. Once we throw it, she takes off and catches it, then she runs back a bit, puts the ball down, then starts retracing all the paths of all the times she's caught the ball before. Finally, after about 10 minutes, she'll go back to her ball, pick it up and come back to you.

She will not put it in your hands or at your feet. She runs up, then backs up about 5 feet, then puts the ball down, looks at you, then pushes the ball with her nose so that it rolls right to you.

Once you catch the ball, (it was your turn to catch it), she will stand there and wait. If you don't throw it right away, she will whine. My husband taught her to bark with a high shrill before he would throw it again. It has since become very annoying and he is sorry he ever started it.

Another little game he plays with her is to 'pretend' to throw the ball. He started doing this because she would get very annoyed if she didn't catch the ball before it dropped. So, she started running 'before' the ball was thrown so she could get there first. Instead of just throwing the ball, my husband would 'start' to throw it one direction, then actually throw it in a 'different' direction. Of course, Little Miss Daisy had already taken off the towards the direction she saw 'first'.

Little Miss Daisy, halfway to the end of her run to catch the ball, suddenly realizes the ball is not coming and she screeches to a halt, with dirt flying, turns around and gallops as fast as her little legs will go in the other direction and all the while, you can hear her 'grunting' and 'grunting' in complaint that she was fooled and now she'll never get to the ball before it hits the ground.

Meanwhile, hubby is laughing and Daisy is 'complaining'. To teach her owner a lesson or two, she gets the ball, takes off, sets it down and doubles the backtracking routine time, making him wait longer before he can throw it again. Course, hubby is happy with this, because Daisy wears him out.