The Little Ball

This entire website was built in honor of my Basset Hound Anton.
And he just LOVED to play with his little ball — as most of dogs do.
So, here I present some texts that praise The Little Ball Game!

The little ball above is the very one that Anton owned and loved;
 it was his second one (he kept it till the end).
The first ball (you can see it in the pictures bellow) was blue - Gisele LOST it!

Obs: Hommer, Anton's adopted brother, didn't care for balls. He liked to play with pão francês (French roll), a kind of Brazilian bread roll;
afterwards, he used to put the piece of bread between his enormous paws and eat it!

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Excerpt from My Talks with Dean Spanley
Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett (Lord Dunsany)

        "To chase anything low", he said, "is always wearisome. You are continually bumping into what you are chasing. There is nothing so good as a . A  goes so fast that it draws out your utmost speed, in a very exhilarating manner, and it can jump about as far as one can oneself, and before one can begin to be tired it always slows down. And then it takes a long time to eat; so that, one way and another, there is more entertainment in a than perhaps anything else one can chase. If one could throw it oneself, like the masters, I cannot imagine any completer life than throwing a  and chasing it all day long."

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Excerpt from A Dog's Life
Peter Mayle
 

The Joy of Balls

        "...It was shortly after the teddy bear incident that I was given my first tennis , and I took to it immediately. Round, springy, and small enough to carry in one side of the mouth while barking from the other, it was my constant companion for weeks."

        "...And that, in my considered opinion, is one of the few interesting aspects of tennis. As in much of what passes for sport, a basic principle has been misunderstood. The essence of any game, it seem to me, is to gain possession of the  and find a quiet corner where one can destroy it in peace. But what do we see these highly paid and luridly dressed people doing with the ?
        They hit it, kick it, throw it, bounce it, put in a net, put in a hole, and generally play the fool with it. Then they either kiss each other and slap hands or have a tantrum and go and mope in the corner. Adult men and women they are, too, although you'd never guess it. I've known five-year-olds with a better grip on themselves.
        But I wouldn't want you to think that I'm completely devoid of sporting instincts. My own version of fetch the , for example, provides me with hours of harmless enjoyment and keep participating adults away from the bar and out of mischief. I always win, too, which is as it should be.
        First, I choose an elevated spot. It could be the top of a flight of stairs, a wall, the raised edge of the swimming pool — anywhere that gives me a height advantage. Stairs are best, because of the added cardiovascular benefits, but I shall come to that in a minute.
        I take my up position,  in mouth, and lurk with lowered head in the manner of the vulture contemplating the imminent death of his breakfast. Sooner or later, this motionless and rather extraordinary pose attracts attention. 'What is Boy doing?' they say. Or, 'Is he going to be sick?' With the eyes of the assembled spectators upon me, I slowly open my mouth and let the  bounce free. Down the steps, off the wall, or into the deep end it goes. I remain completely still, the unblinking eye fixed on the  below me. It is a tense and focused moment.
        The tension lasts until someone has the common sense to gasp the purpose of the game, which is to retrieve the  and return it to me. If the spectators are particularly dense — and I've known a few, believe me, who didn't seem to know whether it was lunchtime or Tuesday — I might have to give a short bark to indicate start of play. The  is fetched, brought back, and presented to me. I give the players a minute or two to settle down and get over the excitement, and then I repeat the process.
        I mentioned stairs earlier. these have the double attraction of noise and healthy physical exertion, in contrast to the visitors' usual program of elbow bending and free weight training with knife and fork. The falling provides multiple bouncing sounds, and the retriever has to climb up the stairs to give it back to me. As any doctor will tell you, this is very beneficial for the legs and lungs.
        I'll admit, though, that there have been days when I've been off form with the long game. s take unlucky bounces, as we all know, and sometimes get lost in the rough. Or, more often, the spectators have been too preoccupied with refreshments to pay attention. And here, I think, is an inspirational example of dedication and the will to win coming through against all odds.
        It was one of those evenings when nothing I could do impinged on the happy hour. I lurked, I dropped, I barked, and still the merriment continued. I even suffered the ignominy of having to fetch the  myself — which, as any of these tennis people will tell you, is a fate worse than having to pay for your own rackets. But instead of bursting into tears and calling for the manager, as most of them do, I brought out my short game.
        The assembled guests — the must have been eight or ten of them in varying stages of incoherence — were all seated around a low table, bleating away about the hardships of life as they punished the hors d'ouvres and held out their empty glasses for more of the same. None of them noticed me as I slipped, wraith-like, through the forest of legs and arms to the table.
        Then — overheard smash! — I dropped the  into a bowl of tapenade, which, as you may know, is a dark, oily dip made from olives. It splatters in a most satisfying way, and those in the immediate vicinity came out in a black rash.
        You could have heard a jaw drop. It was well worth the retribution that followed, and to this day, whenever I pick my  of choice, I am regarded with the wary respect befitting a champion. Incidentally, if you've never tried a tapenade-flavored tennis , I can recommend it. Recipe on request."

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Excerpt from Every Dog Should Own a Man
Corey Ford

        Every man should learn to retrieve a rubber . The way my setter taught me this trick was simple. He would lie in the center of the floor while I carried the  to the far side of the room and rolled it toward him, uttering the word "Fetch!" He would watch the  carefully as it rolled past him under the sofa. I would then get the  from under the sofa and roll it past him again, giving the same command, "Fetch!" This lesson would be repeated until the setter was asleep. After I got so I would retrieve the  every time I said "Fetch!"

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Excerpt from The Bunch Book
James Douglas

Chapter XIX - In wich Bunch discovers that a Ball is the Antidote of Boredom


Bunch by Cecil Aldin

        ...of the mysterious ruling passion in the little life of Bunch. For his soul the is the quintessence of rapture.
        He knows where his is kept. If I open the drawer of the hat-stand he barks ecstatically, for he knows that the gesture is a prelude to a walk.
        If I put his in my overcoat pocket he keeps his eye on that pocket. He leaps up and sniffs the pocket. If I sit down on a bench in the Park he inserts his nose in the pocket and extracts the .
        His joy when I throw the surpasses any joy felt by human beings. He utters a cry of delight which is more intense than any lyrical rapture of Shelley.
        It would be wrong to say that his bliss knows no bounds, for it knows every bound that a dog is capable of exhibiting. He bounds for the pure pleasure of bounding. He bounds till he can bound no more, and then he lies down with his tongue out, his between his paws, painting and gasping in the seventh heaven of happiness.
        When he is alone he plays endless games with his . He puts his head on one side and gazes at it. Then he sets it rolling with a stroke of his fore paw, chases it, seizes it, tosses it in the air and catches it. (Hommer used to do that with the bread roll!)
        He consumes large stocks of s. His bill is enormous. I do not know whether he eats them (Hommer once did eat one...) or not, but they disappear. He hides s everywhere and forgets where he hides them.
        Sometimes he is discovered in a empty room sitting up and begging for a which is somewhere beyond his reach. The may be invisible, but he knows it is there. (Anton used to do that all the time.)
        Often we refuse to believe him, but if we search for it we inevitably find it. (Yes, we did!)

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Please Throw It by Frank Parton

See more dog painting here