Sling Shot

Sunday morning I woke up and it felt like I'd been picked up and slammed onto the ground. Then I remembered I had been. Someone I was talking to later, asked if I had been given the Marmaduke treatment and that's exactly what it was, except I wasn't actually dragged. If I had witnessed it myself I would still be laughing and telling the story but since I couldn't move my right shoulder that day it wasn't nearly as funny. It happened downtown right before our girl Stella went for her third obedience (CGC) class. I usually try to spend some time burning off that top layer of energy before we go so we went down to the Titan's stadium and walked across the bridge to 2nd Avenue. We cruised the entire street and went up Broadway, back down and back across the bridge. We successfully passed about twelve signboards on the sidewalk. Those things used to make Stella come unglued. These days she doesn't even notice them. Once we got back to the stadium I put Stella on the long leash and after a little practice "staying" I got out the tennis ball. The second or third time I threw it, it actually went much further than I'd anticipated and that's the exact moment I chose to look away. There's a cartoon sound effect for what happened when the leash ran out.

All I heard was the thud and when I sat up Stella was studying me with the ball in her mouth from about sixty five feet away. I opened my arms and thankfully, she came racing back to me. Like a cannon ball.

At school we had one little breakdown in communication (imagine that) but otherwise I'd call it successful so far. I have to find some kids that'll hang out with Stella a little bit. She's still overly excited around them except when we're in a big crowd and it's hard to recruit someone's kids to play with your pit bull when they don't know you or the dog that well. Maybe I'll put an ad on Craigslist. Wanted: small children to play with excitable but friendly dog (I can already hear the editorial comments on that post). I know I'm a little behind on pictures but they're coming.