Catching the Ball

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Ollie and I are on a quest to break the long-standing record held by Shadow for catching balls off the garage.

We certainly put in some time yesterday and I found myself saying things like:

“You need to stay hydrated.”

Or

“You should be trying to rest in between attempts.”

Or my personal favorite:

“You aren’t going to break this record unless you want it more than Shadow did.”

We made progress.

Ollie caught 24 consecutive yesterday in the 4 fifteen minute sessions.

It works like this (Shadow had the same rules).

You catch 10 straight and you get a drop where it doesn’t reset.

The thing about Ollie was that he was at 20 with 2 drops in the bank.

He dropped ball #21

Dropped ball #23

And then had his streak end after 24.

“You need to give 110%,” I was saying on the way in the house.

Kathy laughed.

Ollie was panting so loudly that I don’t think he heard me.

“If you weren’t fooling around in between tosses you’d have the record by now.”

Ollie doesn’t seem all that concerned about erasing the legend of a dog that has been dead for more than a dozen years…

…but he will GET the record…

…even if it kills one of us.

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