Each to their own

Good morning, people, it’s your happy-go-lucky labrador-friend BOB here. All of us have our favourite summer activities, and BEACH is a great place to enjoy them. Would you like to come with BOB and see?

BEACH is BOB’s happy place, as it is, I think, for many humans who live here in Kintyre.

Kintyre humans like to walk on BEACH, with so-called “stunning views” of the mysterious things called “Paps of Jura and “Mull of Kintyre”. . .

. . .and many of them enjoy splashing in the water beside BEACH, whether with boards or without.

For BOB, however, BEACH is the place for BALL.

While I know that, for my humans, BALL is little more than an efficient distraction technique to prevent my indiscriminate sampling of dead seals, rotting crabs, and other tasty items from the astounding smorgasbord of dog treats with which BEACH frequently abounds, I also think they understand that, as delicious as a decaying seal can be, I BOB, love BALL above all other things.

BOB loves BALL because BOB excels at catching BALL.

Part of this excellence is innate (for BOB was surely born excellent) but much of it has been developed over 8 years of regular practice.

Unlike my brother (who insists that nothing gets past BRAN, while staring vacantly straight ahead) BOB has a very highly developed facility of looking up.

BOB’s superior ability to gaze skyward while BALL is in motion means that BOB is much better than BRAN at divining BALL’s trajectory.

BOB also happens (ahem) to be the world’s best leaper.

In pursuit of BALL, BOB is quick and nimble as a weasel. Like those fabled magnificent men of the flying trapeze, BOB flies through the air with the greatest of ease.

Can brother BRAN leap and zoom and throw remarkable shapes like this?

BOB knows not.

Despite BOB’s unquestionable superiority in all matters of agility, I confess that I am far less good than my brother at gathering speed, either on land or water. We are good at, and enjoy, different things, then, and such differences also include matters of taste. For example, while I, BOB, have an indiscriminate palette which extends to rotting flesh and excreta of all kinds, BRAN expresses a firm preference for the bland pleasures of an EGG or RICE. And BRAN is also unaccountably fond of OLDBALLS, such as this one.

OLDBALL is large, cumbersome, sadly deflated, and moves extremely slowly. Nimble BOB is not remotely interested in OLDBALL nor does he want to play with it. Yet BRAN’s love of OLDBALL is very deep and most peculiar.

OLDBALL has been knocking about BEACH now for a month or more and every time we encounter it, BRAN insists on taking it for a swim.

Last week, while we were out running with Tom, BRAN managed to carry OLDBALL all the way to Machrihanish. I assumed (hoped) this was the last time we would see it, but yesterday (sigh) OLDBALL was there again, having mysteriously travelled several miles, (presumably in the mouths of other dogs) to find the other end of BEACH, and brother BRAN.

BRAN encountered OLDBALL with the extreme joy of greeting an absent friend of long acquaintance.

While I find BRAN’s fondness for OLDBALL more than a little peculiar, I have been even more perplexed to find, in recent weeks, that humans seem to share his strange obsession, kicking OLDBALL about, shouting at OLDBALL, and watching its movement on big screens for nights on end. Predictably, perhaps, BRAN enjoys these evenings of watching and shouting at OLDBALL as well.

Each to their own, I say.

See you soon, love BOB x