A couple of days ago I promised a funny story about Ruby. So, I am taking the opportunity of a “photographer’s choice” assignment for the Photohunt Theme to show and tell.
First, a bit of background. Ruby is a retriever, through and through. She also has a finely developed sense of responsibility, and an amazing ability to focus. Sometimes she can get a little too focused.
I have taken her to the river on numerous occasions, where she likes nothing better than to have someone, anyone, hurl a stick into the water, which she, with joyous abandon, brings back.
One time a friend of ours, who had been throwing sticks into the water for the best part of an hour, thought to test her abilities. He threw a small tree in the river for her to retrieve. It was a good 20 feet long and about 4 inches in diameter at the base. It was a struggle, but she got it back to shore. She didn’t act real anxious to have that one thrown again, however.
Ruby is a very smart dog, but not smart enough to grasp the difference between a rock and a stick. I love to skip rocks, and when Ruby sees the splash of a flat pebble as it skips across the surface of the water, her retriever brain translates that into “Something that Needs to be Retrieved” and she will go kiting off to find it and bring it back. As you and I both know, a pebble will sink once it is done skipping, but apparently Ruby has not made this connection. She obsesses. She swims back and forth, emitting little eager barks which change to distressed whines when she cannot find the item that I have thrown in the water. It is bad, to the point that she cannot hear me recall her. I have learned that the only way to cure her obsessive search is to throw something that floats so she can achieve nirvana (or whatever) and proudly bring it back to me.
So. Our usual walk is 3.5 miles around the paths of the Coleman Memorial Conservation area in our fair city. If you clicked the link, you saw a map of the layout, and right in the middle is a pond. This pond:
Sometimes it is frozen. Of course.
Now, another bit of background. When we go for our walks, after maybe a half mile Ruby will find “The Stick of The Day.” This is a stick which she will carry for the entire walk, occasionally bringing it to me so I can hurl it off into the distance so she can bring it back. I am not sure what criterion she uses for her choice, because sometimes it is a limb over six feet long, sometimes it is a small chunk of bark, and sometimes a twig. Small things are harder to hurl, for some reason, and they break up, too, so usually she tends toward the large.
The Stick of The Day is prized, and if I throw it off into the field she will hunt for it until she finds it. No other stick will do, it must be The Stick. I have learned that if I “lose” The Stick, the game is over for the day, because that was The Stick and she doesn’t want another one. I admit to occasionally cruelly throwing The Stick up into the forest canopy where it will stay in a tree top once I have become tired of the game. She, apparently, is inexhaustible and I am not.
Earlier this year, it was cold enough that the pond developed a covering of ice. It wasn’t thick enough to walk on, but it made a lovely view. After it froze, we had a big wind storm and a couple of dead limbs were blown off a tree along the shore. They landed on the ice about twenty feet off the shore. During the course of our walks the past week after the wind storm, I have noticed her eyeing that stick that was out on the ice as we walked by. I would tell her that she couldn’t have that one, that we needed to walk on. Every day, her interest in the stick grew, until four days ago, when she suddenly became obsessed by it.
The weather had warmed, and the ice on the pond was only a centimeter and a half thick, not strong enough to support her weight. But that didn’t matter. She approached the pond edge, and began to step onto the ice. Of course, it broke, and so she was toe deep in water. Well, Ruby is a Labrador Retriever, a water dog, and water holds no terrors for her. She continue to step onto the ice, it continued to break, until she was chest deep in the water. The ice edge was in her way, and the deeper water was making it difficult for her to jump up on it and break it. She would bite at the ice edge. Go back on shore. Break another area. All the time she was whining, barking, yipping, obsessing about that stick that was out of reach. A couple of times she picked up a chunk of ice and took it to shore so it would be out of her way.
And she was deaf to me. By gum, she was going to get that stick. I finally had to leash her to continue the walk. When we looped back around to the pond, she went at it again. Eventually I prevailed (leash again) and we went on home.
The weather continued warm, and the next day we again went for our walk. As soon as we were within a tenth of a mile from that pond, she raced ahead. When I arrived, she was obsessing about that stick. Again.
Once more, I leashed her so we could walk on. But when we looped back at the end of our walk, the stick was still there and so was her fixation. This time, the ice was much thinner and I was not concerned about her getting trapped under it and drowning. I didn’t have anything better to do, so I bided my time, and eventually, after much fussing and fuming and agitating, she was able to break her way out to where the stick was and bring it back.
She was so proud of that stick, she carried it all the way back to the vehicle. Catering to her just a little, I put it in the truck bed and transported it home for her.
I don’t know if you can tell, but in that shot she is totally soaked. Apparently, the stick was too long and needed to be truncated for maximum play satisfaction.
The stick is in the place of honor by her dog house on my back porch.
Now, go visit the other photohunters. This week is sure to be interesting.
oh gosh..i love your dog!! really funny too ! love the story of her obsession…got me worried for a while for her safety though. have a good weekend!
I was fully prepared to wade out and get wet to save her if necessary. Glad you enjoyed the story. . .
Dogs chasing stuff is always good to watch – btw – what do lazy dogs chase?
Parked cars 🙂
Dang it, I shouldn’t have taken a sip of tea right before I read your comment! Now I have to clean my keyboard. . .
What a great story. Her determination is such fun to read about, especially since it was rewarded by her finally getting the stick. Also glad she didn’t get stuck. Happy weekend.
I would not have let her get stuck and stay stuck. She’s too special a dog. I couldn’t believe she was still obsessing about the same stick for over a week.
wow! amazing!!
do link this post on sunday or any other post about ruby to Pets forever which is a meeting place for all pets and pet lovers!
I love that story. What a determined dog!
good dog. we have 2 furbabies -cats – but we’ve been scouring the shelter for a retriever for the hubs he’s been aching to have one ever since.
happy hunting.
What Ruby wants, Ruby gets! I enjoyed reading her story. Ruby is so intelligent. 🙂
Happy hunting!
Liz @ MLC
Great story and pics, love that pond!! Ruby is a smart one 🙂
Happy weekend and happy photohunt!
nice pic& post. is she a golden retriever? my fav breed. used to have one, now have a black lab. on closer look she must be a lab – shorter hair.
She’s really a mixture of Golden Labrador and GKW (God Knows What), but the lab is what predominantly presents.
Wonderful post! Ruby is such a good dog. I love retrievers.
Ruby is a beautiful girl. Glad you let her get her special stick 🙂
~ Napoleon
The stick became a trophy. Letting her fetch it was probably just as well in the end, but I’d have been worried about her getting hypothermia.
Even though the water was cold and the ice was still there, the air temp was up in the low 50s. She’s a lab, too. You wouldn’t believe how thick the fur is at her skin level; pretty good insulation on those water dogs.
But I was monitoring her. and we had a nice warm truck not that far away, and she has a wonderful warm stove in the house that is Her Spot. If she was a Outside dog I probably wouldn’t have been so sanguine about the swimming.
It did make me think about my childhood years in Colorado when us kids would be begging my mother to let us go swimming in the pond, and she would forbid it, saying “I don’t care if it is 65 degrees outside, there was ice on the edges of that pond this morning. You may not go swimming.” So we would wade at the edges with our pant legs rolled up and plunge our arms deep into the pond (we were trying to catch frogs) instead. We probably got just as wet as if we had been swimming, but technically, we weren’t swimming! Kids. No wonder my mother got grey hair in her forties.
Wow, Ruby is one determined fella. I hope people would learn a lesson on persistence from her 🙂
Happy New year!
Good pics and GREAT story. Re that stick: sounds like the stick of the YEAR, forget day! 😀
Nice photo. Thanks for sharing. She’s sure one good pet to have. Thanks for dropping by 🙂
Fabulous story HMH
It is amazing the comlte joy and abandon that dogs display when they’re playing! Such freedome. Great shots for this week’s theme.
Oh I LOVE that story. Thanks!
dog gone…she sure is persistant!
Wait wait (don’t tell me!) We DID swim (or at least I did) in that iced pond! I instigated the POLAR BEAR club, but it only took ONE swim for me to decide I didn’t need to do THAT again!