You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The tennis ball.
It’s a slimy ball of saliva. It’s green and brown and chewed into a fuzzy pulp.
It has the viscosity of a Texas oil gusher and the smell of rank milk bone.
I watch the bigger dog chew on his tennis ball.
It is like a spheroid of gelatinous goo.
I watch the young Lab chew on her tennis ball.
It’s a round sponge of spit overflowing like a Niagara Falls of froth.
I am at the Franklin dog park and these two black labs are working themselves into a frenzy.
Bark! Bark! Bark!
These shimmering sleek labs want to retrieve. They want to chase. They want to run at full speed and leap and catch the phlegm ball in mid-air.
They are panting and breathing so hard, I wonder if they are going into K-9 coronary shock.
The other dogs are excited to be at the park.
There’s water to slurp and butts to sniff and plenty of fenced in dirt to explore.
To the other dogs, the park is fun. It’s a fenced in habitat where it’s ok to poop, it’s ok to bark, it’s ok to sniff your own butt.
For the other dogs, the poodles and the Yorkies and the terriers, the dog park is a leisurely stroll, a yawn, perhaps a quick sprint in the raked dirt.
But to the labs, it’s a job, it’s serious, it’s life and death like James Bond’s ejector seat.
The other dogs keep a healthy distance between themselves, the balls of goo and the 2 black labs.
Like the scene in 101 Dalmatians where the dogs bark and spread the news, the dog park is well-informed.
Don’t mess with the Lab’s tennis balls, the other K-9’s bark.
A young dog that apparently doesn’t speak dachshund tried to take the tennis ball from the young lab at the water station.
That’s like taking Luke Skywalker’s light saber.
Help Me Obi Wan!
The young Lab crunched down on the ball with extra force.
Wet saliva oozed out of the green and brown felt.
The athletic Lab gave that unknowing mutt the stink eye and growled a low guttural growl that sounded like an angry toilet backing up in the ghetto.
The other dog quickly retreated giving the lab space.
That signals the two labs to drop the tennis ball at my feet and bark like I’m a home invasion suspect.
BARK BARK BARK
It’s so loud.
It is obnoxious.
The labs don’t care.
They want what they want.
It’s prehistoric, almost primordial.
They are bred to fetch and they want to retrieve.
They put the ball at my feet and get down low in the dog park dirt.
The labs bark in unison like rock and roll amplifiers.
They bark at the ball, they bark at me.
It’s like James Hetfield of Metallica howling at you in the front row.
PICK UP THE BALL, they are shouting.
Pick up the ball and then throw it!
“Move Back,” I say to the big black Lab trying to pick up the slobber ball without losing a finger.
BARK BARK BARK
Both dogs are bouncing in place, barking, their snouts in the dirt.
They are watching my every move, knowing that I will pick up the ball and throw it.
And when I do, they will do what they are bred to do.
I grab the ball and both Labs take off.
It’s like hitting the launch button on the space shuttle.
The big one is powerful, as his paws dig into the soft dog park dirt.
The younger Lab is athletic, spry, and she runs like a young Secretariat.
I throw the ball as far as I can.
The younger Lab turns her head and snags the saliva spheroid out of mid-air.
I see spit and gelatinous goo disperse.
The spry Lab turns on a dime and heads back to me at a ferocious pace.
I hear her breathing, snorting chortling as she runs.
She is determined.
She gets to me and slams on the brakes.
She pretends to put the ball on the ground.
She barks and barks and barks.
She drops the ball and coils tightly ready to launch herself down the fence line yet again.
And so it goes.
Over and over and over.
I throw the ball.
The Labs chase the ball with the alacrity of a spring breaker grabbing a beer bong.
It’s fun and fascinating at the same time.
The dogs love the game, but it’s a game they can’t help but play.
They are like possessed demons with paws, frenzied mongrels with cold noses.
They want to chase, they need to fetch.
They are pre-ordained to run, to chase, to retrieve.
The Black Labs and the spit ball of primordial need.
Life’s Crazy™