Missy is learning physics / Overall, the dogs had a good day

At the end of the evening-- for you "city folk" that's somewhere between 8:30 and 9 o'clock post meridian-- the challenge is to get them all settled down. "Settled down" needs some unpacking. Missy on the bed counts as settled down. Missy repeatedly dropping the tennis ball off the bed, watching it bounce, hit the baseboard, ricochet back (that's redundant), and retrieve it-- REPEAT-- does not.

Rocky laying in Missy's box with the door open while Missy is learning about equal and opposite forces counts as settling down. That no one has bothered Suzy-- who is now up-- counts as settling down. That Missy cannot settle down does not. I would put her in her box, but Rocky's in there.

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As I said, they had a good day, overall.

They started off with a run in the pasture with Mr. Big Food and I. That went very well, although Mr. Big Food and Mr. Rocky Balboa need to work on HEEL. They exhausted themselves and that was the point.

[Oh. He is really trying to help her. They are both on the bed now and she cannot settle down. She was almost there. And then she started messing with him, and he put his arms around her and she didn't get the message. So now he is back in her box making some clawing around noises. Anthropomorphizing-- which isn't the correct word, I'm humanizing behavior, not form-- he's trying to get her to go to bed in her own bed so he can go to sleep. He probably needs my help. BRB]

Through the late morning and afternoon they napped, played, were chained up outside-- which means they dug holes and ate bugs-- ate some ice and behaved themselves in the kitchen.

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There will be a separate post about supper because supper was really good-- soup & rolls-- but for purposes of this story, the point is that supper was in the slow cooker which means that the kitchen is clean, and that we had some time after we'd finished working and before we ate to just sit outside and listen to music.

Missy and Rocky both have tie-out spaces on the patio. I've given a lot of thought to this. Their tie-out spaces canNOT overlap. One or both could choke to death, and that's not going to happen on my watch. For now, they canNOT be unattended when they are tied out. As with many other things we are working on, this rule is one we are working to abolish. The goal is for them to both hang around the patio while Mr. Big Food grills and we listen to music.

And so they did this evening, albeit on their tie outs. Mr. Big Food and I even discussed how well they were doing. And then we came inside and all Hell broke loose. We had a discussion in the Guest Room after I shut the door. I don't think I've mentioned that one of the reasons I like Missy is that she has a really skruffy neck. Missy is a fairly large house pet. I am not a particularly large house pet owner. Her skruffy neck is one of several advantages I have.

They did o.k. for a time, and just when I said, "I think it's time to put Missy away," and Mr Big Food (Missy's biggest advocate) said, "Ah, she'd doing o.k," she had a colossal collapse.