I just took my temporary housemate, a black Lab named Cooper, to the beach for a good vigorous outing with the chuckit and tennis ball. We came back. I sat down at the desk, and he asked to go outside. I let him outside. He went around to the garden and then came back and sat outside the sliding screen door staring at me and making a low growly noise in his throat, as he does when he wants me to grasp that he wants something.
I got up to open the sliding screen door so that he could come in. He didn’t come in, but stood still staring up at me, with his roadkill toy* at his feet. I was supposed to join him in the garden for a game of ‘throw the toy.’ I pointed out that we had just played and I wasn’t going to play any more right now, and closed the screen door.
I sat down at the desk, he went around to the garden and then came back and sat outside the screen door staring at me and making a low growly noise in his throat. I got up, saying ‘Cooper you’re being a pest.’ I opened the sliding screen door so that he could come in. He didn’t come in, but stood still staring up at me, with his tennis ball at his feet. ‘You don’t want to play with roadkill; you want to play with ball?’
Cooper in outside the door mode
A flat plush squirrel with Xs for eyes and a tire tread across its middle
For Cooper as a puppy –
