Sadie visited for a couple of days. She did not come alone but with Art and Sue. While here, she split her time between napping or playing with, catching, or waiting to catch, the ball. She arrived with a brand new neon yellow tennis ball. She completely obliterated the new tennis ball within the first hour of her arrival. Art atold me it’s been months since she destroyed a tennis ball so he brought only one. Luckily, I had a ball on a rope left over from her last visit. The rope, I thought, would prevent the ball from rolling into inaccessible places like under tables and cabinets. Alas, one of Sadie’s specialties is pushing balls, even those with ropes attached, to the furthest recesses under a piece of furniture, then waiting anxiously for its retrieval by one of her human companions. Thursday morning while sitting on the patio with our morning coffee, Sadie would dutifully drop the ball near where Art was seated, then race to the end of the yard, waiting for the ball to be tossed in her direction. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, she caught the ball deftly in her teeth, then trotted back to Art, dropped it near where he was sitting and raced back into catching position. At slightly more than eighteen months, she is still a work in progress but she has learned a few things. While she still has trouble with consistent responses to “down” and “sit” commands, she instantly responds to Art’s sharp “Sadie, ball!” command when Sadie drops the ball slightly out of his reach in the game of catch. My guess is that because it’s to her benefit, she instantly returns, picks up the ball, then drops it within reach of his grasp. While she waits for the toss, her concentration is very intense.