When I was a kid, one of my father's friends' daughters had a siberian husky bitch named Sukey. She used to love to play a game called "Sock" - which, it turns out, was a lot of fun for the dog and a real adventure for a kid. Basically, the way you play is, you take a sock...
And you hold it where the dog can see it...
Now, in the case of little Jake and Miles, I use a red towel. Why red? The first sock we played with was red. And towels, well, they're a lot tougher than socks. As if that helps.
The way I was taught to play when I was a kid, you just sit there, and let the dog grab the sock. But that's no fun. So I start off running, usually yelling something inane like "Sock! Sock! Look!" Of course you can't run in a straight line or the game ends really fast. Did I mention that Miles and Jake can easily outrun me? Of course they can. In the picture above, that's a full-blooded timber wolf temporarily inhabiting little Jake's cuddly body. A wolf that is hungry for socks.
Jake's the tactician of the two, Miles relies on blinding speed. Here I got past him by reversing hard (they are fast but I can out-turn them still) and passing the towel from one hand to the other. Sneaky human!! Jake had just taken a shot at where the towel was before I did the hand-pass and is doing a little doggy face-plant on the grass. Ha! Score one for daddy!
Did you notice these pictures were shot on auto-wind with a very fast SLR camera? About 1/8 of a second after the previous frame, Miles sinks his little fangs into the towel. Uh-OH! Jake, meanwhile, is recovering from his missed attack and ... well... I am in the land of pure newtonian physics...
75-lb puppy, 195-lb guy. Guy off balance, 2 feet on the ground. Puppy low to the ground, 4 on the floor. Whap - yeah, I probably could have held on but I'd have wound up on my butt. Or I'd have hurt Miles' mouth. Score: dogs 1, humans 0.
Jake latches on with a low running side-pass. He usually waits and sees which way the prey is going to break then rockets up and grabs it. He's also not adverse to simply tripping you and walking away with the sock.
Little Miles gets big air. Memo to self: don't wear red bandannas around your neck.
See my kung fu? I can levitate a 75-lb puppy by just raising my hands!! See how attentively Miles is watching? On the off chance that Jake misses he's going in.
(Theme from the movie Jaws)
Jake's really a very cute and cuddly fellow. I just do this to help him with his teething. Really. But some day we'll have some house guest that gets on our nerves, and we're going to put red towels in the guest bathroom...