SF Dog Blog: Fetch THIS

Some dogs play fetch. An extra-special dog plays fetchfetchfetchfetchfetchfetchfetchfetch! Meet Slate. He's a 1 and 1/2-year old black and white Border Collie mix. He has the attention span capabilities of a successful transcendental meditation practitioner. This means that he can commit to, for instance, a nice game of fetch for hours and hours and hours. See fig's 1a-1b, below.

Maybe the game of fetch he and I played didn't actually last for hours, but Slate wants it known that it could have. Once I work up to his level of focus and lasting concentration, we'll be able to play some marathon sessions. For now, we played about a quarter in his room, another quarter in the SPCA courtyard, and then for halftime we went for a walk.

If there had been an audience sitting in the bleachers for all of this, they would have been chanting, "Slate is great! Slate is great!"

Bear is a 1 and 1/2-year old brown and tan German Shepherd mix. He's been here at the SF/SPCA since May 19 (almost 2 months, a surprisingly long time for such a well-trained and attractive dog)! He's got standards. To be a good match for Bear, a human would preferably be able to commit to an ongoing training program for him, and provide the walks necessary to work out the energy that builds up throughout the day. This energy can make Bear seem a bit rambunctious, but he is not a hyper dog. He just wants the basics: 3 hots and a cot...and a walk! And the cot he could probably even do without. When I went to get him for our walk he was a little excited (he almost jumped but then he totally listened to my command saying not to). During our walk he was great, and upon our return he was of course cool, calm, and collected.

Bear rocks, and I give him my SF Dog Blog "Obedient plus Beautiful" rating.