Red Ball Mystery

So if you've ever been over to mi casa you've probably met my lil' bugga. She's the cutest thing ever. If you read my blog here and there you might have already met Roxie, my miniature schnauzer - or more frequently our new dishwasher. Anyway, Roxie is addicted to playing fetch with her little rubber ball - she can do it for hours on end, it's amazing. She's really talented too. Throw it as hard or as high as you can and she's right on it... she'll leap into the air and catch it - sometimes without a bounce.

Randomly you will hear roxie having a barking fit - which is unusual - and it's either because her ball is stuck somewhere that she is physically unable to get OR she had dropped it right in front of the back door slider on the deck. The barking fit would originally benefit Roxie because we'd be so curious as to why she is making so much noise that we would rush to her aid and, ultimately, play fetch. It didn't take me too long to realize Roxie was crying wolf so I discontinued to drop what I was doing to throw a lowsy ball to my annoying dog. Now it doesn't matter where I'm at - the kitchen table, the living room couch, upstairs in my bedroom, in the bathroom, the garage, the laundry room, even outside on the driveway - Roxie will search me out and find me and drop that rubber ball at my feet. And this happens from the moment I walk into the door to the moment I step out.

Mysteriously Roxie's rubber ball had disappeared... along with her back up one. There were occasions when Paps or I threw the ball too hard and it managed to clear the fence into the neighbors yard... but even after we performed a search and rescue mission it wasn't to be found. Over the next couple days I noticed that Roxie just wasn't herself. She would try to play fetch with a tennis ball and then a stuffed mini basketball - but it just wasn't the same. After a few fetches she left them out in the yard and came back into the house, head hung low. Soon she wasn't playing fetch at all - she would just spend her whole day sprawled out on the couch or on the smalles little spot where sun was managing to hit the back yard deck.

So we splurged and bought Roxie another rubber ball. But this time, instead of red, it was yellow. She got all excited like before, grabbed the ball and placed it at my feet. I threw it across the back yard and noticed that Roxie stalled when it hit the ground and started bouncing. The stall was quick, though, and she retreived the ball like before. She brought it back to me, I threw it again, she stalled again - but regained her composure and returned it to me. After a few more she gave up. She was done. I was confused.

This was the exact same ball she used to have so much fun with - the only difference was it's color: yellow. I heard somewhere that Dog's see in black and white... so I wondered if this caused her to have trouble seeing the color yellow. Really, I have no clue but after a couple days of seeing Roxie all depressed again I couldn't take it. Neither could the padres... so Paps went and bought her the same red rubber ball.

I think we've got our good ol' Roxie back. Yesterday she went crazy with the Red. She was even chipper this morning as she jumped up to my bed to wake me - along with her red ball.