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working and living with performance spaniels

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I’m a retired English instructor, now devoted full-time to training, showing and enjoying my spaniels in many sports.
I’m an English college instructor by trade, a dog trainer by vocation. And lifelong baseball fan.

The significance of a tennis ball

To you, a tennis ball might be a lowly object, a cheap amalgamation of rubber and fuzz, easily substituted by an exact replica and easily discarded.  But to me, a tennis ball keeps chaos at bay.  A house without a tennis ball is a house with a raging Gordon Setter puppy mouth, happy to fill itself with any chewable or non-chewable object: table ends, underwear, kleenex (preferably used), tea bag remnants, any kitchen item including metal forks and knives, student papers, notebooks, and so on. 

Thankfully I’ve found that the lowly tennis ball is a wonderful substitute for Gael’s need to chew.  Once her mouth is full of rubber fuzz, she seems content to use her energy in other ways:

These “other ways” usually consist of running in huge circles and playing keep away from the other dogs, since Rozzie is also a tennis ball fanatic:

The greatest value of the tennis ball comes in the evening around 7pm, which I’ve come to see at Gael’s witching hour.   When I’m just settling down to dinner and a relaxing time watching TV or reading a book, Gael is winding up for a final harrah of the day.  A tennis ball in the house and a final run in the pasture seem to make this last burst of setter energy liveable.  Without these two strategies, I couldn’t imagine the state of my house or my mind in this 9th month of Gael’s existence. 

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3 responses to “The significance of a tennis ball”

  1. Patrice Avatar
    Patrice

    I like those rubber Chuck-it balls. ’bout the same size as a tennis ball, without the green fuzz. The green fuzz can wear down teeth (or so I’m told), and my pups like to skin the green off the tennis balls.

    And, yeah, what’s with the used tissues? My dogs will dig them out of trash cans and pockets. I heard one trainer say that, caught one day without a treat reward, grabbed a used tissue out of her pocket and rewarded a really nice recall with it. Apparently, the used tissue turned out to be a very high-value reward.

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  2. Shelley George Avatar
    Shelley George

    Evening is usually when Soc’s needs another run. If a tennis ball is at hand (mouth) then all the better. Soc’s runs through the kitchen, leaps on the footstool in the Familyroom then back through the kitchen, into the livingroom, a few quick turnarounds with much ruffing and back again to do it all over again. It’s MUCH more fun if I or Roger stands in the kitchen, kind of like a barrier, and we clap for excitment when we aren’t pretending to grab him. He doesn’t seem to get tired but finally will stop. I think we get more tired than he.

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    1. ballylynnspaniels Avatar
      ballylynnspaniels

      Hi Shelley,
      it sounds like Socs has you well trained.:-) Laura

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