120915 - Bal on the Hill

Earlier in the year, in the first months after adopting Nicki, i felt obliged to walk him before going to the gym. But i have a lazy streak and, as a result, he got romped but i didn't get gym'd. To be fair, an injured hip and soggy weather contributed to the slouch back home. 

Come Spring, however, and once Nicki's separation anxieties had chewed up the seat belts anyway, the order got reversed. This works out well.  

One of the places i take him is Squalicum Field, a large half bowl of grass inset against some bluffs with a fenced-in baseball diamond on the flat circumference.  The area around the baseball field has been "adopted" as an unoffical off-leash dog park.

What makes the place special is a large mound between the baseball field and the bluffs. The mound is used by people who like to watch Johnny at Bat while siting on a grassy knoll with the household mutt.  It is also used by runners and cyclist who like to charge down from the bluffs and see how much stamina they have to make it to the top of the mound.  Lastly, it is loved by Nicki who can think of nothing better than to have me chuck the bal high into the air and down on to the field below.

"Bal" is a dense rubber lacrosse ball which fits into the chuck-it perfectly and has a lot of momentum and bounce.  It also takes Nicki about 3 months to destroy it.  

All of this leads into our being at the mound, after gym, and my chucking the ball high into the air and down field.  

Now the mound has four foot trails to the top, in two more or less wish-bone configurations.  The first few times I chucked the ball to my left, Nicki ran down hill, scrambled after the bouncing ball and then ran back up the left side trail. Today, however, veered off the trail and came up between the left and right paths.  He did this a second time as well, sort of tacking his way up to the top. 

In figuring out why he chose to do that, i noticed that the incline on the left pathway was steeper than the route Nicki had chosen, which means he had assessed the grade and had chosen to tack up the easier way. 

Who says Labs are dumb?

Triumph!

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