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February 20, 2011

The Play Date (Lots of Pictures)

Filed under: AireTails — admin @ 7:38 pm

One of the things we were looking forward to was a play date with our neighbor’s dogs.  They have two Border Collies, a Bearded Collie, and a fenced yard.  It’s even better than a dog park because we know the other dogs.

Last Sunday was the date. Ruby and Otis met Teez, Finn, and Pie.  Teez is about 2, Finn is, I believe, 7, and Pie, the Bearded Collie, is ancient.

This was the first time we got to see Teez and Finn in action. My impression of Border Collies (based on this experience) is that they are a black and white blur of motion, punctuated by freeze-frame poses (these usually include a ball at your feet) and staccato, ear-piercing tenor barks. They have boundless energy, and will play ball with you until you pass out, and maybe even longer.

I’m not sure what Ruby and Otis thought of them, other than they were fun to play with, but oftentimes, Otis would come back to stand by one of us, in hopes that they would forget he was there.  I am thinking that the Border Collies felt that these two new additions to the herd needed to be herded and kept in line. Finn did just that, circling all of us and yelling at Ruby and/or Otis anytime they stepped out of his imaginary magic circle.

Teez was another story.  Teez isn’t neutered yet, and thought that the Airedales were brought over for his … ummm … pleasure. He initially went for Ruby, but she told him in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t in that kind of mood. He then spent alot of time trying to mount Otis, which is probably why Otis kept coming back over to us. Otis is such an easy-going guy, that he would just try and walk away.  Teez, undeterred, would try again. Oh, to be a teenager again!

They all romped and played for quite a while.  Finn kept trying to keep us in his corral.  Our hostess said he’s a bit OC.  They gave us plenty of photo-ops.  Ruby decided to go over to the wire fence and bark.  Don’t know what she was barking at, but she apparently did.  Then she heard some sort of commotion behind the back fence and that’s where she played “Guard Dog Ruby”!

We gave them a couple of water breaks, but after a while, they seemed like they had had enough, so inside we went. 

We started talking about introducing Ruby and Otis to cats, and our hostess volunteered one of hers, so she brought him in.  Otis wanted to sniff this thing soooooo much, and, while she was holding the cat, he did so. He just kept shoving his gigantic nose into the poor cat, who had enough early on, and just started PUMMELING poor Otis.  Well, Otis was undeterred by the street-fighter style pummeling and just kept sniffing. We were all laughing so hard that it was difficult to pull the dapper Otis away.  The cat apparently didn’t feel too threatened, however, as the claws never came out, despite all of the hissing and such! Kudos to the cat for such restraint.

Our hostess took the cat to safety and apologized profusely to it for the nose assault!

We then took them home and they crashed for the evening.  The next morning, it was evident that they were STILL beat. We took them for their morning walk, then they came back, ate, and crashed again!  All in all, it was fun for all.  We can’t wait to do it again.  Hopefully, we can get them in better shape so that they can keep up with the Border Collies!

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