My son and his family are away for a two week vacation and we are looking after Beasley, their two year old black lab/border collie mix. Beasley is obsessed with fetching balls. She has a problem with letting them go, though. She'll return and look up at me with the ball in her mouth. "Drop it", I say. She just looks at me, so I have to wrangle it out of her mouth. Thankfully, she's a chill dog and doesn't seem to mind it being taken from her that way. It's like her brain just cannot process what it means to 'drop it'.
I thought I had resolved this issue by having two balls handy. I'd whip one off with the ball thrower (let's you throw at least 5x as far as you can without it!) and then when she returned, I'd show her the second ball. She'd then drop the first one. However, this only worked for a short time. She is one tenacious dog! And I don't really think it's working for her, because I give up after a while and just let her wander around with the ball in her mouth, when what she really desires is a good run and fetch.
Tenacity and obsession can be a lethal combination! It makes me consider my attitudes I cling to and how they are not serving me so well. It could be a control issue, it could be the need to be right, it could be holding to 'that's the way it's always been done', or perhaps 'I know better than you'. Time to release the grip!
So, how am I going to convince Beasley to just 'let go'?
