Air Maisy

I was minding my own business, just making oatmeal as I should, when my eyes were drawn down to the floor. What I saw was just an ordinary red beach ball. It wasn't very big, about the size of a small cantaloupe. I'd seen it a million times before.

But today, I had a idea. Maybe it was the train of thought I had been going down just minutes earlier. I had been thinking about movies, then about dogs, then about movies with dogs in them, and then I thought about the movie Air Bud and how much I loved it.
Maybe that's why I noticed the ball.
After staring at it for a good 2 seconds, I thought" It sure would be cool if Maisy could hit a ball in the air like Buddy did." So call me crazy, but I tried it.
This is the result..........

1) Sit on the floor and call Maisy over
2) Scold her for being on the table licking Q's oatmeal bowl
3) Clean her sticky chin
4) Get her in position about a foot in front of me and command her to sit
5) Show her the ball
6) Reposition her, as she has already wandered away
7) Throw the ball directly in front of her and watch in dismay as she watched it fall to the ground
8) Throw the ball again and feel a spark of hope when she moved towards it
9) I should probably mention now that it was only 2 inches and more of a glance than a real move
10) Throw it yet again with not much expectation
11) She did it!!! Jumped right up off the ground and hit it high into the air with her snout!!!!!!
12) I scared her cute curly tail right under her furry little body with my shrill shriek of delight
13) Did it about 10 more time with smashing results (the Air Maisy Show, not the shrieking)
14) The whole family came down wondering what was going on
15) Maisy performed beautifully for the whole family
16) She was doing so good that we decided to reward her with cheese each time she hit the ball.
17) Bad move

She was so distracted by the cheese that every other thought left her fluffy little head. Despite our pleas, the ball bounced off her back, head, and every other place a ball could land with absolutely no results. We even moved to a different room and still all she thought about was the stupid cheese. Like owner like dog. However, we are weak, so we finally gave her the cheese.

Once she realized that it was gone, she was back in action! Twisting, twirling, jumping, hitting it almost to the ceiling! We were so proud. And everyone even gave me all the credit for teaching her!

Yep, I'm feeling pretty special right now!

~Laurel