Let go

Jake is a playful golden retriever, and he is great at fetching. He can fetch non stop until we got tired and bored. However, sometimes he loves the ball so much that he keeps the ball in his mouth for a long time and wouldn't let it go, and his grip was so tight we couldn't pull it out of his mouth.

If he doesn't let go of the ball, how can we throw it for him so he can play?

This is simple truth which can apply to our lives.

3 friends

Doggies waiting for the throw.
Photo by my friend Sally.

Over the Hedge

Have you seen the animation Over the Hedge? Animals getting into people's garbage at night to find food. Like the houses in the movie, we also put our garbage bin outdoors. We had many incidents where animals knocking over our garbage bins, chewing through the garbage and making a mess. We tried to weigh down the garbage bins with bricks. But raccoons were very smart, they could knock over anything, especially when they were hungry.

When there is a will, there is a way. We have the perfect solution to this problem -- our dogs -- we found this "solution" unintentionally.

So we have these two big golden retrievers, and they produce a lot of poops. When we cleaned up the patio and picked up the dog poops, we put them in the dog food bag - it must weight at least 15 pounds. It's not our favorite pass time, but it has to be done.

Lacking a more environmentally friendly way to process them, we put the dog poops in the garbage bins. Many times last year, the animals knocked over the garbage bins, chewing through the dog food bag to find dog poops inside.

While cleaning up their mess, we felt sorry for these animals. Luckily, they stop coming all together.