Got Balls?

Despite the freezing weather (and you Mainers can say what you like; it’s damn cold here today), I took Kaya to the beach again today. Seeing how much she loved the piece of tennis ball she found on the beach last week, I thought I’d give her a treat by bringing along a whole tennis ball in good condition. The tide was high leaving only about 20 yards between the lick of the waves and the cliffs of Fort Funston. There were several new (small) landslides which fanned their yellow rubble onto the black sand of the beach. Kaya loves to climb and jump and so was excited to clamber up the landslides, stopping to poop in a precariously steep spot halfway up the cliff.

I gave Kaya a few minutes to tear around and then brought out the treat. I asked, “Ball? Ball?” She responded by eagerly looking at me, her muscles tensed ready to send her speeding across the sand. I tossed the ball; she flew after it, picked it up and … ran up the damn cliff with it! She dropped it at the top and returned to the beach. I contemplated going after it, but was stopped by imaginary headlines: Woman Crushed to Death by Sand While Trying to Rescue Dog’s Ball. Make that: Stupid Woman Crushed to Death by Sand.

Several minutes later, I found a ball on the beach. It was pink and rubbery, and the effects of salt water and sand had crinkled its surface into playa-like cracks. Once again, Kaya got all excited. I kicked it down the beach and she went pelting after it. She picked it up and – you guessed it, ran up a cliff with it, depositing it somewhere out of reach of a bipod like me. I had no idea that today was “Run Up a Cliff with a Ball” day.

Almost back to the car, I found another ball. This one was probably a tennis ball at some earlier point in its career, though had since become bald and a little shrunken. I kicked it for Kaya, wondering how long it would take her to deposit it somewhere out of reach. She brought it back. I kicked it again … and again … and again. She never tired of it and never ran away with it. In fact, I kicked it once and she lost it. Despite the fact that I had started walking toward the car, she remained on the beach, anxiously trotting haphazard search patterns through the sand.

I really do wonder what the hell is going through that head of hers. She and I clearly evaluate the world around us using very different criteria: what’s gross to me is delicious to her, and what’s delicious to me is, well, usually delicious to her. I would like to be able to spend some time in her head, seeing the world through her eyes and nose, just to get a sense of what it’s like. I’d also like to know what she thinks of me and the other humans around her. Does she derive comfort and pleasure from my company in much the same way that I do from hers? Or are we simply another source of food? Does she find my preference for a whole tennis ball as mystifying as I find her appetite for jellyfish?

As she ran up the cliff with the ball, perhaps she was thinking, I can't believe she brought a tennis ball the beach. How embarrassing. I better hide it before that hot lab notices.