18 March 2009

We have been in the new house for 6 months now and have settled in very well. We have found some lovely walks which the dogs like very much. But for Ruby there has been something lacking. Sticks. When we used to walk through the woods there were always lots of sticks for her to play with and she permanently had one in her mouth. But here the walks are over playing fields and golf courses. Lots of space to run but distinctly lacking in sticks.

This morning however walking across the golf course I noticed a big pile of logs, tree trunks and branches. The golf course keepers had obviously had a tidy up and done some pruning. Ruby saw them and dropped the football she was carrying and fell squealing onto the biggest tree trunk in the pile. She had a huge grin on her face and she tried to work out how to pick it up.

I let her play with it for a little while and then told her that I wasn't going to stay there all day just so she could play and told her to pick a stick which was a more manageable size. She eventually picked one that she could carry and agreed to come home with me and trotted off happily with her trophy. Favourite football cast aside and forgotten. Left for mum to carry home.

I didn't have the camera with me but Ruby was quite happy to take her stick for a walk up the road to show off her stick carrying skills so I could video her. She will carry her sticks for miles. They are usually at least 6 feet long and I have weighed some of them and they weigh anything up to 15-20lbs. Ruby only weighs 44lbs so it is an imense weight for her to carry. She is really good at allowing for the length of the stick when navigating round obstacles and goes up to narrow spaces very carefully so she doesn't get bumped if her stick is too long.
When we got home we encountered another problem as the gate into the back garden is too narrow to get the stick through. After lots of squealing, tugging, digging etc I took pity on her and stopped laughing and carried the stick into the garden for her. It is only a short video but Ruby spent at least 5 minutes trying to get her stick through the gate and would have carried on for a much longer . She never gives up where sticks are concerned.
Ruby now brings a new stick home each time we go for a walk and is getting quite a decent collection together to replace the one I got rid of when we moved. I wonder if the golf people are puzzled by their shrinking pile of sticks?