It's still about the ball, Mom

Robbie still has to figure out that perhaps his game plan has to change a bit.

He is ball obsessed.  It is part of his life and kind of his little security blanket.

The ball comes with us on walks (he'll walk 5 miles with it in his mouth), it is with him on trips outside of home & walks and it is with him when I am home, moving around the condo.

Ghilley has put a little wrinkle into Robbie's ball play.  The first part is she just cannot let him sit, leaning against the wall waiting for me to kick the ball.  She needs to be in his face and bumping him to convince him to play with her.  She is the cutest thing on the planet, right?

I do rescue him sometimes, either distracting Ghilley with play or swapping her up for Mommy hold time.  She is quite a cuddler so it is no real hardship.

Robbie is regularly playing with Ghilley now and it is multiple times a day.  The tough thing for him is that he is 10 years old and is still healing from a sacrum injury in July.  I call a "timeout" every now and then to pull him aside since he has been pushing himself a little too much with her and winds up sore the next day.

She is great for him.  I think they are a nice blend in the pack but it has only been two weeks and we still have a few kinks.

One of those kinks is the old man.  I need to keep Duff out of the way of the play and sometimes he is determined to get in on the fun.  Trouble is, he really does not want puppy teeth on him and if Ghilley knocks him, he corrects her.  If Robbie is nearby, Robbie goes to nail Duff and I have a boy-vs.-boy battle on my hands.  It is a lot of yelling but I have to break it up and it makes me furious with them.  This went down last night (I have watched out for it all along).  Ghilley was bounding around them, barking at them too, obviously agitated.  I had both boys in each hand by the scruff, letting them chill.  I am still amazed I managed to crate Ghilley in the midst of this as she kept wanting to resume play with Robbie.  Not a good time, Roberto was ticked off.

All doggies had crate timeouts while I decompressed from that and work.

Back to normal after it but it serves as a reminder that chemistry takes time.