{"id":2668,"date":"2014-06-23T07:00:18","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yourdesignerdogblog.com\/?p=2668"},"modified":"2014-06-30T12:18:42","modified_gmt":"2014-06-30T16:18:42","slug":"obsession-continues-silly-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yourdesignerdogblog.com\/2014\/06\/23\/obsession-continues-silly-solutions\/","title":{"rendered":"The Obsession Continues – Some Silly Solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nThanks for liking us! Sadie and I really appreciate the love!
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On\u00a0this Mischief<\/a> Monday, I’m going to confess that I’ve been the mischievous one lately. Last week I talked about Sadie’s Not So Temporary Obsession<\/a> with her mini squeaky basketball. Well the obsession continues (day 7 if you’re counting) and instead of letting it drive me crazy, it’s driving me toward mischief<\/a>. I was tired of Sadie constantly knocking the ball under furniture or into hard to reach areas, so I decided to create some distractions.<\/p>\n

\"dogs,<\/a>
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First I put Sadie’s ball into an empty tissue box and sat back to watch her attempt to retrieve it. But that was far too easy, and Sadie was back to knocking the ball under the furniture again in no time. So next I put the ball in the far corner of her dog crate. She avoids going in there as much as possible, so it was funny to see her trying to stretch her body out as far as it could go to reach the ball without actually going inside.<\/p>\n

\"dogs,<\/a><\/p>\n

But eventually she got the ball back and the cycle started once more. So then I noticed the\u00a0empty laundry basket. I placed Sadie and her ball into the basket, enabling her to squeak to her heart’s content without being able to send the ball under the furniture. And it worked perfectly for quite a while. I even put one of her dog beds\u00a0in the basket so that she could lay down comfortably while squeaking.<\/p>\n

\"dogs,<\/a><\/p>\n

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Eventually that became too boring for Sadie and she discovered that if she dropped the ball over the side of the basket and cried, I would come running and hand it back to her. After playing that game with her a few times, I gave up on the laundry basket and looked around for a new idea. While in the kitchen I realized that the ball would sink nicely into an oven mitt and Sadie probably wouldn’t do too much damage to the mitt.<\/p>\n

\"dogs,<\/a><\/p>\n

This one was the most difficult for Sadie and she soon became frustrated with the oven mitt. She kept trying to put her head inside to grab the ball, but she could never quite reach it. Eventually she discovered that if she picked up the mitt and shook it, the ball would fall out.\u00a0Lastly I took one of Sadie’s toy bins, emptied it out, and overturned it on top of the ball. She seemed to enjoying pushing it around and scratching at it, until she eventually tipped it up and got the ball out.<\/p>\n

\"dogs,<\/a><\/p>\n

At this point I ran out of the more creative ideas and just started hiding the ball around the house; always in different rooms, but always in places she could safely reach.\u00a0That gave me some\u00a0nice long relaxing periods of time while Sadie searched for the ball, without the constant squeaking and furniture interruptions.<\/p>\n

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This post is part of the Monday Mischief<\/a> Pet Blog Hop.<\/p>\n

\"87b9a-bloghop\"<\/a>
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