… on maine dogs in maine snow

January 18, 2018

HRH the Princess Bunny-Blaze very much enjoys retrieving her tennis ball.

So much so that she gets a bit…er… cranky when Marshal attempts to get the ball. It’s become a bit of an issue as Marshal is smaller and faster than Blaze, so can get to the tennis ball first.

However, let’s face it, Blaze is older and she has more insurance.

Love me some ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’.

But seriously, Blaze barks the thing about age and insurance REALLY LOUDLY and right into poor Marshal Dillon Dingle’s ear when he gets to the ball first and dares to pick it up.

So – and you can see this above – Marshal has taken to stalking and catching any toy that is in the general vicinity of Blaze’s ball(s), and picking it up and shaking-slash-killing it and then making as big a production of his success as canine-ly possible.

Hang on, I’ll show you.

Ah! Here we go.

Okay.

The catching part:

Lion. Gazelle.

Warning: The following image contains graphic content. Viewer discretion is advised.

The killing part:

Ew.

The standing regally over the destruction part:

Queue theme from The Lion King

But he’s never happy with just that.

Never.

The ‘parading his prize around so Blaze notices’ part:

But Blaze?

Blaze is always paying attention.

Always.

However she is not interested in Marshal’s half-frozen and quite-dead reindeer from his Christmas stocking that he wasn’t supposed to take outside.

No.

She has…. the ball.

Wolf Pose (dog yoga)

Eventually, Marshal will notice that Blaze is not paying attention to him… and begins to wonder what she is doing. And, more importantly, if it is better than what he is doing.

Which it, of course, is.

But just to be sure he knows it, Blaze will growl and make other threatening noises whilst dominating the ball.

Which is when Marshal begins whining out the side of his mouth at whatever is going on over by Blaze…

Which is about the time that I mention to Marshal, from behind the safety of my Camera, that he might want to think twice about falling for it – all of it – again.

But I’m just the mom. Which, since he is still a teenager in his own head, makes me – yep – stoopid.

The Marshal Dillon Dingle Side-Eye

At this point I give up on Marshal taking my advice and I walk over to Blaze and say something like, “Blaaaaaze, I know what you are doing. I know what you have in mind. And you have got to stop baiting and then bullying Marshal.”

And I try to say that with lots of stern-ity.

And that is when Blaze tells me that she would never do such a thing, that it is unroyal, and then makes quiet assurances that she will not do anything untowardly this time.

That looks like this:

And… well, I will not show you pics of what happened next when Marshal did trot on over and get a bit too close to Blaze’s totally-broken-yet-apparently-still-precious ball.

Because there was mayhem.

And feminism.

And then I had enough so I took the ball, and threw it.

And Marshal got to it first, but he didn’t dare pick it up.

Instead he chose the nearest toy…

And it began all over again.