There’s balls in them there hills!

Just when you think the snow is on its way out, it returns full force. Bad news for cars and people who prefer not to fall on their bottoms, great news for dogs.

Beanie just loves her new ball-on-a-rope

Anyone for a game of conkers?

As you can see Beanie got to play with her latest toy – a ball-on-a-rope from Auntie Sheila – and thoroughly enjoyed it. I swapped it for her tennis ball after a few minutes though, because Beanie has a nasty habit of losing her toys in the snow.

Predictably, she didn’t hold onto the tennis ball for long. It was saved, briefly, from a white, powdery grave when Lola (I think!) dug it up and started a chase..

.. but a few minutes later Beanie managed to lose it more thoroughly. Fortunately she didn’t miss it, because little Maya was well up for a play session.

They had a great time together, although Beanie soured it slightly by telling Maya off for some reason. Happily, it was all waggy tails again seconds later.

Soon it was time for Biggles’ off-lead session, and boy was he ready for it. He was so wild with excitement he lost his Air Kong ball within the first couple of minutes, but again it didn’t matter too much because he soon found some new friends to play with!

When you’ve lost your ball, you just have to work with what you can find

The prelude to a chase…

And they’re off!

His playmate had good straight-line speed, so Biggles had to draw on the skills he’d learned from his sister Beanie:

Sprint hard..

turn sharp and..

..break away on your own!

He did well, but then he seemed to forget that you’ve got to keep doing those sharp turns if you’re going to out run a bigger dog!

Still, he’s relatively new to this chase game. I’m sure he’ll get the hang of it soon. After the running was over our little boy seemed keen to show off his howling ability to another of the Eurasiers.

I’m not sure what he was howling about or why, but it didn’t seem to have the desired effect. Don’t you just hate it when that happens?

He had a great time though and afterwards we took the long way back to the car, allowing our two pups to pack in some more sniffs and us to see some pretty unusual sights. Believe it or not, this is the “Pond” – the park’s lake, totally frozen over and covered with snow.

Beanie and Biggles weren’t too impressed by the view though, and we weren’t too impressed with Biggles’ idea of walking to heel.

At least he doesn’t share his sister’s worrying fascination with walking on ice!

As we left the park, I made a mental note to restock my pockets with balls for tomorrow. That’s three of our balls lost in the snow in the last week or so, and who knows how many lost by the scores of other dogs who frequent the park. When the snow finally clears it’s going to be Christmas all over again for some lucky pups!