My Naughty Ub-sess-shin: As Told by Athena

Hi guys!  Athena here.  My mom and dad have been a little bit irritated with me lately and have even threatened to not bring my ChuckIt! Launcher to the park anymore.  Can you believe it?!  They said that I'm in charge of writing the blog today to tell you guys about some naughty things that I've been doing with my launcher...

I love my ball so much.  I never want it to go away!

Well here it goes.  I hope you all still love me after hearing about these naughty totally normal things.

You all know how much I love my ChuckIt! Balls and how I will do anything to play a game of fetch.  Most of you also know that I am a very helpful girl and will even carry my ChuckIt! Launcher to the park for my mom and dad.  Well, recently I've been extra excited about my launcher and whenever my mom and dad get it out of the car trunk hiding place, I just know we are about to play my favorite game.

This is my favorite game!

For some reason my mom and dad think that I'm being naughty when I sometimes jump up and try to bite the launcher out of their hands.  I don't mean to be naughty, I just get a little impatient when they take a super long time to launch my ball!  Can you blame me?  Dad says that I have accidentally put my teeth on his hand a few times and even though it was soft, it still hurt him.

I want that launcher so bad that I might just bite it!

My mom says that I also have to write about the other naughty thing that I've been doing with my launcher.  So, I now know the "drop it" words and will always sit and drop my ball at my mom and dad's feet.  But, whenever mom or dad tries to grab my ball with the ChuckIt! Launcher I just get so excited that we are about to play again that I bite the launcher and try to steal it from them.  They keep saying things like, "she's ub-sessed with the launcher!"  I don't know what ub-sessed means, all I know is that I love the launcher so much that I just want to bite it!

Got it!

I don't think that these things are too naughty, but my mom says that I need to stop doing them or my launcher is going to be put in time out!  This is why I need your help.  Please can you give my mom and dad some sug-jes-chins about how to get me to stop biting the launcher out of their hands so that it doesn't have to be put in time out!

Thank you in advance for your qwap-er-ation with this matter.

The Dog Who Forgot How to Play

Athena is not the kind of dog that lacks play drive.  She is alllllll about play time.  We have yet to find a toy (or off-limits object) that doesn't satisfy her desire to play whether it be a ChuckIt! Ball, a stuffie, a Kong, or a piece of clothing from the dirty laundry.

Soooo, are you going to throw the ball or what?!

Because Athena's desire to play is so strong, we actually had to begin by gradually keeping toys out around the house for her to play with.  When we first brought her home from the shelter, Athena would play so hard and so wildly ALL OF THE TIME (which often escalated into bitey zoomies) that we only allowed her to have toys during designated play sessions a couple of times per day.  She has now progressed and is able to handle having a couple of toys laying around the house to play with when she feels the urge (with no more bitey zoomies- yahoo!).

Needless to say, this girl doesn't need any lessons on building play drive.  She's got it pretty covered.  That is, until we introduced her to a new toy this week.

Meet the AEROBIE Pro Ring.  A soft rubber frisbee that we picked up at REI for $10.

We specifically bought this frisbee for Athena to play with because as much as we love the ChuckIt! Ball Launcher, Athena is just a tad bit obsessed with it.  So, we wanted to find another park toy that would not only allow for some vigorous exercise, but would help to eliminate some of Athena's OCD behaviors towards her ball and launcher.  Also, we had seen a dog and handler at the park a couple of weeks ago doing super cool tricks with a frisbee, so B asked about it and we decided that we needed to be that cool too, so we bought the same one.

Athena loves ALL toys and moving objects, why wouldn't she love this super fancy frisbee?

I like to wear the frisbee as a necklace.  I do not like to play with it!

Well, we gave the frisbee a few tries and so far is have been a pretty big flop.  I swear, Athena's strong play drive went out the window and she forgot everything she knows about "fetch" when we flung the disc.  Rather than retrieving the frisbee, she does one of two things: 1) Run after the frisbee, look at it, run back to mom and dad without frisbee 2) Stare at mom and dad when they throw the frisbee, don't run after it.

One of the rare occasions when Athena actually had a go at the frisbee

To make frisbee fetch seem like the best game on earth, B and I threw the disc back and forth to each other.  If Athena happened to get the frisbee and put it in her mouth we used our most exciting voices to cheer her on.  We also laid the frisbee on the ground and put treats all over it for Athena to eat, but that didn't even keep her interest for that long.  Finally, we tried sparking a bit of drive by placing the frisbee around Athena's neck, but that only resulted in a dog wearing a frisbee necklace.

So, any ideas on how to help Athena learn how to play/retrieve the frisbee?  Maybe our choice in frisbee was poor and we need to look for a more "dog friendly" model?