Tales of Puck - Part 1

My Pug-mix big brother Puck is a goofball. He's brilliant, devious, energetic, ADD, toy and food driven, and an escape artist. He's the happiest dog you'll ever meet. And he's 15 years old.

Mom got him when he was 1 year old. He'd lived his whole life chained to a house, until a really rainy winter convinced his owners to give him to rescue. She offered to foster him, to teach him some manners. It's been 14 years, and she's almost accomplished that task. LOL

She showed him for a long time in agility, and he was awesome. But a challenge. His exuberance and silliness sent mom back to the drawing board over and over again. When he was good, he was very, very good. When he was bad, he was horrid.

Never should have named him Puck.

She's decided to spend this week sharing her favorite "Puck Stories". There's a lot of them, so narrowing it down to 5 will be a challenge.

Puck Story #1

Puck had an orange stuffed ball that was his FAVORITE. He saw one at a show, became obsessed, so mom bought if for him. He loved that toy until it almost fell apart.

She was showing him at an agility trial, and they played with the ball. Before going into the ring, she put the ball into the toy bucket that was hanging from the canopy at ringside. They raced around the ring, and as they were coming into the home stretch, a line of 4 or 5 jumps to the exit, Puck took off. He jumped all the jumps, ran out of the ring, ran into the ring across the aisle, and body slammed the Australian Shepherd that was playing in that ring (the ring was empty). The Aussie went flying. Mom was in hot pursuit, when she realized that Puck had knocked the toy out of the Aussie's mouth, and was retrieving it. He grabbed the toy, turned tail, and ran right back to mom, with a huge smile on his face. When she took the toy from him, and grabbed his collar, she realized the toy was his orange ball.

Apparently, the ball was knocked from the bucket. The Aussie saw it, and started playing with it. Puck was having NONE of that, and took matters into his own hands. He never growled or got angry. He just got his ball the best way he knew how, and brought it back for his "after run play time".

The judge offered to let mom run again, since the Aussie caused Puck to become distracted. But Puck was so proud of himself for getting his toy, she didn't have the heart to take it away from him.

Mom still has the ball. It will go into Puck's memory box after he's gone. It's in tatters, and covered in dirt and slobber. But every time mom sees it, she'll remember the fun times they had playing agility.