Archie and His Tennis Balls, Continued

It's hard not to compare Archie to Harry: male, black and white smooth fox terriers, sweet and loving and astonishingly stubborn. And both utterly obsessed with tennis balls. That's not particularly fair to Archie--he is very much his own personality. But the overlap between them is surprising.

I had to keep all tennis balls picked up when Harry was around because he would guard them rather fiercely. Mine! All mine! I was able to channel his energy into a great career in flyball, but that only fed his obsession with tennis balls. I have no doubt that Archie would also do well in flyball, sailing over the start/finish line shaking his head and growling with the ball in his mouth as he passed the dog coming in, just as Harry did. Mine! But I prefer to keep Archie focused on agility for now.

Even though Archie is not particularly guardy for a fox terrier, I still have to keep tennis balls picked up. Otherwise, he would either bury me in a mound of them while I was studying (he picks the balls up and drops them inches from me, letting them bounce a few times, then repeats this...endlessly) or he would chew on one constantly like a large yellow cud. That's not great for his teeth.

I can't even say "ball" around him--he starts flinging himself around the house with the same energy as if I had said "agility" or "walk". His pupils dilate, his ears come forward. He drools a little. He runs to one of the spots where I store the balls, looking back at me expectantly.

I think there are around 20 or 25 tennis balls in the house. I'm not actually sure of the total count because even though I am vigilant about looking under furniture for them when I clean and picking them up after we play, Archie somehow manages to produce 1 or 2 a week. I have absolutely no idea where he stores them. In fact, I have decided that he makes them. I think Archie has a laboratory somewhere in the house where he conducts his alchemy: turning lead into tennis balls. Retorts bubbling away, flasks of stinky, gem-colored liquids, mortars filled with ashes of newt. 

I have a dog bed in the bathroom because I gave up years ago on peeing and showering alone. Mimi sticks to me like a burr and 99 times out of 100 she will curl up in that bed long before Archie shows up to see what's going on. The other morning, I got out of the shower to find Mimi standing there glaring at Archie who was tightly curled up in the dog bed. Hmm, that's odd, I thought. It wasn't until I finished my routine and was leaving that I found out why he was in the bed--he was curled up on top of TWO tennis balls. Two. Did he lay them like eggs? Did he bring them in from his secret laboratory in anticipation of napping on them during my shower? It is a complete mystery.