Fruit & Nuts: a new game from Jura & Ailsa

Those who know Jura know that his most favorite game is to drop an object (ball, soft toy, yogurt container, stick, what-ever-comes-to-mouth-if-none-of-the-above-are-available ) on the ground and to stand over it and stare at it until some obliging mammal with a hand picks it up and tosses it in any direction so that he can retrieve it and begin the cycle all over again.  Some of us are particularly obliging and indulge his silly habit indoors (particularly dangerous depending on object dimensions & direction of toss), outdoors in any weather.  With his propensity to re-injure his lower back this game was banned for the last 8-9 months.  

His journey to VetHab to remove his excess poundage and re-condition his body, though, has had an bonus benefit - he can play his game again (albeit the biped who feeds, trains & plays with him a) has to be more sensible about the limits on the game & b) he is to be warmed up BEFORE playing the game).  

I usually shower as one of the last of my morning activities which means the dogs are exercised, fed and have usually performed whatever morning training will occur on that day prior to my being able to attend to my needs.  They hang out in the vicinity of the bathroom and one is usually on guard lest I happen to go down the drain during this dangerous activity (Not bloody likely - but they have to check behind the curtain just to be sure). Sometimes one of them (Jura) gets bored and has taken to dropping a object into the tub.  I pick it up and toss it out, he catches it (more points for leaping up and snagging it before it hits the floor), and he repeats the cycle.

This morning the object was an artichoke from Planet dog - it is chewy, fits a springer mouth and has a very eccentric bounce.  Ailsa wanted in on this game but was summarily excluded.  So she went off and returned with the eggplant which is even more unusual in its ability to bounce.  Luckily, Jura was not interested in swapping objects as that can be very boring.  By the time she was playing the game, I had removed myself from the shower, was dressed and completing the teeth cleaning routine, but my job as tosser is usually not complete and it ended up that the eggplant was deposited in the now empty tub - great distress for Ailsa as she did not know how to get it.  At this point I was interested because she can jump objects higher than the rim of the tub (agility table, for example and even up on to the bed) but she had not generalized about the tub rim.  Jura had the artichoke in his mouth and dropped it and I tossed it into the tub (well on our way to making ratatouille).   He popped in, rejected the eggplant and fetched his artichoke and popped out.  She - being smart at watching the older guys - did the "Ah ha!" and popped into the tub and picked up her eggplant.  Interestingly, she could not easily jump out with the eggplant in her mouth so she dropped it out of the tub over the rim and then jumped out of the tub.  

While I completed the morning ritual she made a new game for herself - pick up eggplant, drop into tub, watch it roll around, when it stops, jump into batch tub, pick up eggplant, drop over rim, watch it roll around the floor, jump out of tub, repeat until Mother leaves the bathroom.  Baker, who usually presides over bathroom duty from the threshold, was sufficiently intrigued to sit up and watch from just inside the door (his job appears to monitor who is in and who is out of the bathroom).

We will see if the game exists beyond today - I will add pictures but we are off to CCSC for fun & games.

Ginger