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November 10, 2009

During what proved to be another distraction-steeped week, I found this when I went into the kitchen to get some lunch. Big thanks to Lilly for providing perhaps the day’s only laugh. You’ve heard of raccoons washing their food? Well, it’s a habit Lilly learned from Ginko when it comes to dirty toys — balls in particular. I was going to call this How Clean Are Your Balls? But, I feared that would attract icky spam.

Both dogs regularly bring dirty toys from outside into the house, where they proceed to dunk them in the water bowl. I cannot tell if they simply want to guard the toy from the other while drinking or if it truly is an attempt to clean things off.

In this case, Lilly clearly drank all the water and left the toy behind.

The problem with soaking this particular ball is that it is foam-filled, and as you may be able to see from the top, it has been torn. There is nothing worse than listening to them play with one of these after it has been dipped and had time to absorb either drinking water — or pond water.

It seriously sounds like a plumber plunging a toilet … forever.

Sometimes, they lose balls because of this habit. If the water in the pond or creek is mostly frozen, the ball can easily get sucked under the ice. Lilly gets obsessed when this happens, so to prevent her from tearing up her feet digging at the ice, we have to call her inside and hope she forgets the ball is trapped.

So, in addition to Lilly harboring a cartoon wolf (as noted long ago in photos), it seems she has a raccoon in there too.

 

About the Author Roxanne Hawn

Trained as a traditional journalist and based in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, USA, I'm a full-time freelance writer for magazines, websites, and private clients. My areas of specialty include everything in the lifestyles arena, including health and home, personal finance and other consumer interests, relationships and trends, people and business profiles ... and, of course, all things pet related.

I don't just love dogs. I need them in my life. Seriously.

  1. That is so funny. One our dogs has recently become a water connosieur. He will only drink from the water bowl if it has been recently freshened. If it’s been sitting there all day, he will drink from the toilet (which makes me nuts and results in my slamming toilet lids and bathroom doors).

  2. Between this post and the last, the inner comedian in Lilly is really starting to show on the blog.

    That’s such a funny habit, and even funnier that she picked it up from big bro Ginko.

  3. They are made by Hartz Mountain, believe it or not, and I buy mine (several at a time) at the local Safeway in the pet section. They come in two sizes … as I showed in this post about playing fetch in the snow. While mine will play with the bigger ball, they prefer the regular-sized one.

    I first caught on to these as “the magic balls” after I saw a shy cattledog at an agility trial with one. Her handler said it was the only ball she loved. For the most part, that’s been true of Lilly as well. She will rarely play fetch with any other ball … which is why I buy several at a time.

  4. Dogs are so interesting – the habits that they develop intrigue me. And, the fact that those idiosyncratic habits get handed down from one dog to another is even cooler. I wonder if Lilly does this just because she saw Ginko do it?

    My dogs have never even thought of cleaning anything! All they do is make a mess… but I love them anyway!

  5. Where did you get that ball? I noticed they were quite the trendy thing at the dog park in Chicago but when I asked one woman where she got hers she said they don’t make them anymore.

  6. Don’t you love the things dogs do just to entertain us? I had a few pieces of chicken to put on Javas food and I said, “Let me get the chicken.” She immediately ran and brought me her squeeky chicken toy. Smart, silly girl.

  7. My late brittany Erin was a compulsive ball dog. But she hated them when they were covered with dirt and spit, so she always either switched balls when they were dirty, or dumped them in one of the water bowls. Murray does it occasionally, but he’s too prissy to get it out of the bowl on his own.

  8. This made me laugh out loud! Animals have such interesting thought processes, and they can be so industrious when following through on them.

    Also love the photo of Lilly’s inner cartoon wolf.

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