Gillys Blog

If Dixie was a human being (heaven help the world!), she could have a wonderful career as the inventor of brand new games. Playing is one of the things she loves most in life – it’s right up there with eating, sleeping and having her tummy rubbed.  If she can find a person willing to spend hours throwing balls and toys around for her, she’s in seventh heaven. She’s got the ‘fetch’ part off to a fine art, though there’s still a bit of work to do on the ‘bring it back and drop it at my feet’ bit. Consequently the person doing the throwing also gets a good work-out – chasing Dixie for miles across fields to retrieve the ball – I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is all part of her plan, because she definitely does like to direct proceedings.

 

She’s got two top favourite games she likes to play with Fraser (that’s my Mum’s Shih-Tzu who came to stay for a few days before Christmas – and is still with us!). The first we’ve christened ‘Double-Decker Dog’, and to play it properly you need dogs of very different heights. Fraser fits easily beneath Dixie’s tummy and can weave happily in and out of her legs, so they’re now Grand Masters of the game, and regularly come up with interesting new variations just to keep the whole thing interesting. When Dixie was smaller, she quite often played the lower deck role in Double Decker with our senior dog Zara, but when she tries it now, poor Zara’s back legs are lifted clean off the floor – and the indignant expression on her face clearly indicates she doesn’t think this is any way to treat a person of her status!

 

We’ve called Dixie’s other favourite game – ‘Mata-dog’ because it involves the use of a small rug or towel as a matador’s cape. Dixie always gets to be the bull-fighter, while Fraser – whether he likes it or not – gets landed with playing the bull. Dixie’s just about perfected the art of swirling the cape, ducking and dodging round Fraser who can get very irate about the whole thing, snorting  in a way any self-respecting bull would be proud of! This game also has an occasional off-shoot called ‘Cat-ador’ when Cash or Puskas inadvertently find themselves in the bull role. This variation generally doesn’t last too long as the cats run out of patience long before Fraser and let Dixie know what they think of her games in no uncertain terms!