They love to tease each other … each trying to jump higher up on the fence leading to the backyard than the other. Their grins are carbon copies, their laughter cloned like their bodies. Smokeyjo is a six-year-old Type B, black and tan. He’s sire to 1-year-old Sabine, Type B, black and tan. They both have a left foot with a white toe-sock. They both have beautiful tan yokes with a large white blaze beneath. They both laugh and grin and have the same happy disposition – and they are both very competitive when it comes to playing rattie soccer!
I’ll open the back gate into the 2-acre fenced-in back yard, and they’ll explode out into it with all the other furkids; however, these two will stop and wait – none too patiently sometimes – for me to start the ball rolling … literally! I’ll hold the big purple ball up so they can see it, letting their tension build, then smack it over the fence into the backyard. Immediately they chase it, hitting it with their forepaws and noses, pushing it all over the backyard, pushing, chasing, laughing, and barking. The whole time they chase it, they’re barking a happy, yappy, “come play with us” bark. Smokeyjo closes his mouth in-between barks, but his daughter, Sabine, keeps hers open constantly. Seems she can’t decide whether to laugh or pant or bark, so if she keeps her mouth open she can do what ever she feels like at that moment. They’ll keep this up until they are only occasionally barking but panting full-time, and suddenly Smokeyjo will head full tilt to their wading pool, Sabine hot on his heels. Jumping in one after the other, they’ll snorkel and snort and toss water all over the place while trying to drink at the same time. Then, cooled and happy, they’ll see me heading to pick up the ball and take it back inside. Huh? No way! They snatch it right out from under my hands and they’re off again!
Sherri Chatterton
With help from Smokeyjo and Sabine
