He’s also funny, smart, playful, and ready to run, romp, and generally make a mess of everything. He has two buttons. Asleep and runaround like mad throwing toys, barking, leaping, grabbing more toys, trying to get you to keep throwing toys. Followed by more running, barking, leaping and knocking things off shelves. Stuff is falling all around us and I’m not even sure where it was before it fell down.
Gibbs with The Duke
He is hilarious. He is also a pest because … he is a dog who fetches. Fetching dogs come in two varieties: the occasional fetcher and the obsessed fetcher. He is an obsessed fetcher. If you throw the ball once, you have started a game that will never end. I’m pretty sure this is a dog who, with the addition of a few tennis balls, will never care about anything else again.
Except food.
The nearness of any kind of food turns him into a vibrating wire. He is seriously hungry. All the time. I know it’s his youth, but we’ve had other dogs like this and they did not outgrow the food drive. Even when they were a whole lot bigger than they ought to be, they still wanted more food. More and more and more food. This little dog is food-driven and we are trying to keep at least this dog from becoming obese. Good luck to us!
He is a pest. He is also charming and fun and endearing. Right now he is outside growling and barking at … Gibbs maybe? Sticks and stones? He likes sticks and stones, too.
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Categories: #Photography, dogs, Friendship, Humor, Pets
REMEMBERING TINKER BELLE 
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
You, my dear, are a pushover… when i was a pup we had ONE ball!!
… and it was a rock! 😉
love.
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Sure is noisy. I think I’d rather just throw the ball. How expensive was it?
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The ones I saw were about $1500. There may be cheaper ones. I saw that single price and said, uh, I don’t think so.
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Yikes. At that price they should make less noise, I’d say. I won’t be buying one, either..That’s ridiculous.
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Sounds like Morrie.
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He’s a puppy. He’s housebroken and he’s reasonably civilized for a youngster. Doesn’t chew anything that isn’t a dog toy. That’s pretty good for 15 months. I’ve had MUCH worse.
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Morrie is over his chewing. Just destroys a few balls a week. Impossible to find one he can’t chew apart. And, he pees on the floor if I let him in the house.. and poops on the outside patio when the grass is wet! Doesn’t seem to mind jumping in the pool but evidently doesn’t like getting his feet wet.
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He sounds like he has a real personality. Here’s what you need https://youtu.be/4PcL6-mjRNk
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You know, I actually thought of that? Then I looked at the price and decided we weren’t going to do that. But it seems like a GREAT idea. Keeps the dog really busy.
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I guess you had better look into buying tennis balls in bulk too. Three of the four dogs I’ve had were obsessive fetchers. There was Nicki who would retrieve a stone if you threw it into the sea, it might not be the same stone but she’d always bring you one. Tessie who would bring you her ball drop it and nudge it closer if you didn’t respond and bark at you if you still didn’t take the hint. She was a sharer, she also took the ball to anyone she met on the beach including Japanese tourists and babies. Cindyis another fetcher but now she’s reached senior dog status sometimes she’s happy to just run around with it in her mouth and satisfied with just a few throws.
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Yup. That has been my experience, too. Most fetchers are grimly determined to get someone, ANYONE, to throw that ball, toy, stick. Anything. They can’t help themselves. I’ve seen dogs sleep with a tennis ball IN their mouth. I can get 36 low bounce tennis balls. Eight dollars. If I dole them out slowly, they could last for months. The low bounce balls should also help prevent total destruction of my home. And these are super low bouncers. And thank god they do NOT squeak. He has one that squeaks. Who invented a ball that squeaks? Didn’t he/she have a dog? Didn’t they understand? Geez.
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and dont forget this is probably the first time in his life where he has been able to use those collie legs and that terrier energy flat out. Remember how Gibbs was when you first got him, barkbarkbarkbark runrunrun…
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Thank you for reminding me. That’s true. It took Gibbs about two months to calm down. It’ll take him longer, but he is much younger, so he’s not only a rescue, he’s also a puppy. A BIG puppy 😀
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Duke sounds delightful to me. He also sounds like he has a lot of adjusting to do. Once he realizes that he’s with you to stay and he stops being anxious all the time, he will calm down. He may still have a lot of energy, but it will have a different quality. He sounds frenetic right now. He’s excited and scared and unsure all at the same time. He’s getting to do things he’s never been able to do. Our new dog, Remy, chewed through every one of Lexi’s toys in the first week. Now she’s a selective chewer and a sporadic one too. She has mellowed out amazingly. So give Duke a few months and watch him transform before your eyes.
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He’s also young and really energetic. I wants to run. He wants to play. The older dogs will play for a few minutes, but otherwise, they aren’t interested in an all day play schedule. Poor young dog, he is suffering from excessive oldness in the house.
He is a bit frenetic and it’s very easy to get him worked up. Garry plays with him, and then, Garry’s done. Unfortunately, the pup isn’t done. He’s just getting started. It’ll be okay. He’s healthy, young, and full of vim and vigor.
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He’s like a kid in a toy shop.
Leslie
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I need to buy tennis balls. A lot of them.
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I bet…..
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Low bounce tennis balls (for kids) are $8 for 36.
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Have you tried the Dollar store?
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Oh, the exciting uncharted territory – a new dog. Good luck!
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He is a puppy. Everything is new.
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Note to self: Buy stock in dog food. Duke is gonna’ make me rich…..
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We upped his food today. I think it helped some.
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cha-ching!
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Well, of the things we give our dogs, cheap tennis balls and extra food is the easy part. I can get 36 low bounce tennis balls (they only bounce half as much as standard ones — made for very young players on miniature courts) for $8. We just got 8 lbs of food for free for Duke. We’ll have to buy him different food anyway because our food is for older dogs and he needs food for young dogs who run and bark all the time. The tennis balls, distributed one at a time, slowly slowly, should keep him happy for months. Cheap at the price.
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Yes, Duke is cute. But these are the times….
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Yeah. We play, he gets excited. We get tired, he’s just warming up.
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So cute!
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Cute, but definitely a pest. An adorable runny pest. Squeaky ball and all.
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Ah… sounds a lot ike Ani 🙂
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Smaller, but yes, I think so. He gets that gleam in his eye and starts squeaking the ball. I need to get him balls that don’t squeak.
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Ani is still not playing ball properly with her new ones… still mourning the old one and it has been weeks now…
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