This is her happy face

Just kidding. This is her SOMEONE GOT THE FRISBEE AND IT WASN’T ME face. Beneath her sweet countenance lays an angry little toy hoarder.

This is who got her frisbee.

Maisie is no fool. She knows Peetie doesn’t WANT the frisbee, she only wants the cookies that come from getting the frisbee and returning it to the Food Lady.

She looks keen, but it’s all an act.

Then she got it again.

OH THE RAGE

And another frisbee-loving imposter. This one likes the cookies that come from returning the frisbee, but she also likes just having whatever it is some otherdog wants. Pound for pound (and she has lost some lbs and is now nice and trim, incidentally) she is the biggest bitch in the pack.

Does not want the frisbee even a tiny little bit:

Another small dog who has trimmed right down ever since I remove the accidental step stool that gave her free and unencumbered access up and over the laundry hamper and into the buffet that is the cat food in the bathroom. She’s a little miffed that she’s once again getting two meals a day instead of four, and she’s doing it with nine fewer teeth since her dental $urgery (ouch) but she remains her irrepressible self, even if it takes her a bit longer to masticate her (two) meals.

FINALLY GETTING IT!!

Now this guy wants the frisbee almost as much as Maisie does. But only if nobody else is trying to get it at the same time, since he can’t hear them coming. I find it fascinating that the same deaf dog who apparently does not understand the simple hand signal for “come here DO NOT RUN OFF INTO THE FIELD AND TRY TO SNEAK INTO THE AGILITY BARN” can glean instantly from the set of my shoulders relative to the gravitational field of the planets aligning with some kind of future visit from an alien race whether I have told Maisie to stay so I can throw the frisbee for him WITH HIS BACK TURNED TO ME. He remains, going into his 12th year, an enigma.

Isn’t quite sure what a frisbee is:

Just kidding. Noodles is still holding his own and doing remarkably well for 16! He is a little slower to get up that he used to be, and he trots back with the frisbee (and eschews retrieving balls on land mostly altogether) but he can still keep up on a hike. He even swims every day, which is why you get a bonus photo of him swimming back with the ball. Because it’s adorable.

OMG OMG OMG I CAN LITERALLY TASTE IT

This girlie has about two frisbee chases in her and then she is off hunting whatsoever is scurrying or slinking or hopping around on there for her to find. At the pond she has recently taken to standing in the pond plants up to her chin and remaining motionless, hoping to fool some hapless bullfrog into thinking she isn’t really there. The problem is that she can’t help wagging her white tipped tail which is held aloft and thus is basically a semaphore transmitting to bullfrogs near and far that she is here to Eat Them. She has even more recently gotten so frustrated that her ninja technique has failed to net her a single frog that she now just swims around through the pond for as much as half an hour at a time while they use the pond plant highway to evade her and she paddles frantically after them. This amuses me the most because for 10 years I have had to reteach Spring how to swim every spring, and now she’s turning into AquaDog. I guess it’s all about finding the right motivator.

BUT – bullfrogs can dive and she’s not mastered that yet, so her quest for frogs legs remains unrealized to date.

There are no photos of Winter. Which is a blessing really. I love the little needy, snuggly, huggy, conflicted-and-gets-growly-when-I-smooch-him-sometimes guy, but he is just not photogenic.

GOT IT! AT LAST, ALL THE FRISBEES OF THE WORLD ARE BELONG TO ME

SOMEONE will never be a real frisbee dog, because SOMEONE thinks frisbees can only be carried when folded in half, a belief system I blame solely on floppy Kong frisbees. Auntie Stef lent us this “real” disc and it takes her about two and half minutes and some serious contorting to return it, because it doesn’t like to fold in half and if it refuses it is otherwise unreturnable. Apparently.

She remains a skookum little agility dog though, despite her old, fat and lazy handler who never trains with her. Now that dog sports have come back into our collective lives as The Plague of the last year and a half (sort of) recedes, my weekends are slowly filling up with dog sport shooting gigs. I photographed a CKC Sprinter even that was wildly successful and lots of fun. Dogs running fast is always cool to watch.

Then I photographed an agility trial that was less successful, if we’re talking in terms of the amount of time and effort that I put and the returns on that investment. Because I have so little free time, I am going to be more discerning about what I will and will not photograph on my weekends going forward. But it was successful for us personally, as my Crazy Maisie earned herself another Q with a first place in Speedstakes. I was especially proud of her not only because we NEVER train but the course involved back to back tunnels, which she has never seen. I still remember entering Tweed in a Tunnellers event a gajillion years ago and after like the third tunnel in a row he literally stopped on the course and turned to me to give me stink eye, as he assumed I was lost on the course because WHERE IS THE OTHER EQUIPMENT. I kind of expected Maisie, who is basically a reincarnation of Tweed, to do the same thing, but she has more faith in me / is less skeptical that her predecessor and she went for it whole heartedly. She really is the best girlie!

If I can get it together to train on a regular basis (which is probably going to happen regardless because The Sadist growled something terrifying at me about how he WILL be training at the building regularly and I WILL be expected to join him) she is going to be amazing. She will only be handicapped by me. And it’s a pretty big handicap, alas.

I am so lucky to have such good doggos.