Karl’s Red Ball

Karl and his new friend, the red ball (image by Krazy uncle)

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First I have to say that Karl is the first dog I’ve ever sworn to support and protect. For some reason I just wasn’t that into dogs in my earlier life. I have had a couple cats that I took care of, but that was over thirty years ago. My last cat was named Ivan, for Ivan the Terrible. He was a definite terror when he was a kitten, but he was the sweetest cat I have ever known. He made friends with every person he came in contact with, and had many cat friends around the neighborhood. After he passed away due to cancer of the kidneys, I just never felt like I could take responsibility for another cat, and I certainly didn’t expect a dog to come into my life.

My life circumstances changed a few years back after graduating from college. When I finished regular classes I still had an internship to finish. My previous work employer called me to come help bring in the harvest, and needing a job I came back to my home town to help out. The farm put me up in a house on their property and I went to work, with the idea that I would finish up my internship and move onto the next stage of my life. Things didn’t quite work out the way I planned. And, because farming generally is a fifty hour a week job in the slow months, and eighty hours a week during harvest, my internship got put on hold.

After a couple years passed I was laid off due to the price of wheat being low and my employer needing to cut back the crew. I spent a couple months, during the winter, just hanging out and writing. I’m not really a winter person and the long foggy days, with no sunshine started to affect my mood… I started to get really depressed. About this time my former boss called to let me know about a Cocker Spaniel that was lost, not far from my house. And, after The Stray Dog took up residence in my heart, my life took a change for the better emotionally. There is a saying when a person takes in a rescue dog, “Who rescued who?”

That explains a lot of why I didn’t know much about taking care of Karl, and I made a lot of goofy mistakes.

A couple months after Karl showed up, my former employer called me to come back to work. My boss had a puppy, her name is Suzy and she is a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog. Even though I said puppy, she was probably six months – to a year old. And, she’s big – fully grown she weighs in at about 100+ pounds.

One day at work I was playing with her by tossing a toy around for her to fetch… when it suddenly dawned on this dumb human that I could play fetch with Karl. The next time I went to the store, I got Karl a ball.

As soon as I got home, and gave it to Karl, he knew it was his new red ball. He immediately knew what to do with it. He dropped it on the ground and started rolling on his back, on top of the ball. He still plays that game, it must feel good and it’s his way of showing how much he loves his ball.

Of course, I wanted to start playing fetch with him. And, once the rolling, and chewing session waned, I picked up his ball and gave it a toss. Ah, you should of seen his eyes light up! He ran and grabbed up the ball and immediately ran away from me… hmm… So, I got some of his treats and we started playing ‘bribe-catch’. As long as I gave him a treat, he’d play fetch. That actually turned out to be a mistake, as he would then go get his ball, just for the treats. Well, that was okay by me, but the Doctors told me I had to stop doing that when Karl gained fifteen pounds. That was another area I had to learn about. I didn’t know how much to feed him and it took a while for me to realize he wasn’t going to starve, if I cut his feed down

We had fun playing fetch, but one day the red ball was gone. For days and days our game of fetch was done. Then one day I was walking around the house with Karl and he walked over to the foundation of the house and started digging… what’s this I wondered? And, then Karl dug up his red ball… hmm? It turns out he likes to hide some of his things. So, it was back to our games. But, then again, one day the ball disappeared completely. I finally bought Karl another a green ball like the first, and we continued playing like before.

Karl in repose... chewin'... chewin'... chewin... gone! (image by Krazy Uncle)

And, then one day I came home from work and Karl ran up to me, wagging his tail, his tail wagging him and generally wiggling all over. He also had his ball. I asked him to drop his ball for me to throw it for him and that’s when I realized where the ‘red ball’ went. His new ‘green ball’ was chewed down to about half its original size… Oh, great! Luckily Karl needed to poop and so I went to check, and sure enough there were little chunks of ‘green ball’ mixed into to his leavings. Ah, new lesson learned – don’t let Karl play with his ball alone. He will chew it up and eat it…

Anyway, that’s the story of Karl, his red ball and his dumb human…
p.s.: be careful with letting pets play alone with their toys, just like the package says…