Blind Tosses

In the mornings Mommy takes her shower first. While she is doing so Daddy takes us out, cleans up after us, gives us our treats, looks through the paper, starts Mommy’s tea, and then  goes on his computer to check out news. (Mommy takes a long shower.) Daddy put the computer on the floor and I bring him my red ball. And then Daddy throws it without taking his eyes off the computer screen. The idea is that I will run after the ball, retrieve it, run back with it, and drop it by Daddy to be thrown again. But Daddy, while never looking, has the ability to make impossible shots he could never make if he was attempting to do it.

There is a small, thin hutch in a corner of the kitchen. The space between the hutch and the wall is slightly wider than the width of the ball. It would take an expert bowler ten tries to get it behind the hutch. Daddy, while blindly throwing the ball ten times, can get it behind the hutch three.

Then there are Mommy’s shoes. She leaves them by the front door. To get the ball in the shoe Daddy has to hit the chair in the dining room chair on the back right leg, have it bounce off the right spot to hit the outside corner of the door frame which will make it dive towards the closet door where it nestles inside Mommy’s shoe. When I run to Daddy barking that I have lost the ball, he crawls on all fours to look for it, and he always says the same thing: “How the hell did that happen?”  It happens once out of 40 times.

Then there is what we like to call the hole in one. It is a blind shot that bounces into our water dish. I like this very much because the water splashes up in the air like a fountain. Mommy doesn’t like it because she has to wipe the water off the floor. She has a hard time dealing with three kids in her house, Foley, me, and Daddy Minion.

When the ball goes into the water dish I have to bark at Daddy to get it out. Even with my tiny mouth I can’t open my jaws wide enough to pick up the ball. Daddy comes crawling over and takes the ball out of the dish. He is supposed to dry the ball because when he throws it when it is wet it sprays water into the air. But he forgets and then he bounces it and water flies off it as pretty as dew off a butterfly’s wings. Then it splatters on the wall and gets Mommy mad. Daddy puts the ball in the dish one out of ten times.

I don’t get mad at Daddy when he throws the ball to a spot that is inaccessible but I wish that worked for both of us. When I bring the ball into the bedroom put it on the ground and nose it right under the bureau I don’t get credit for it. Tiger Woods couldn’t do that with the accuracy that I do but Daddy still asks “Pocket how did you do that?” At least I have the class not to ask him how he got the ball in Mommy’s shoes.

It is a fact of life: Dogs are much more polite and understanding than humans.