AUGIE'S MISSION STATEMENT

I WILL BECOME THE BALL.

Does your pet have a mission statement? This pooch has developed her ball-handling skills to the level of a hall-of-fame shortstop. The ball NEVER gets past her. She is consumed by her passion: retrieving the ball. I remember reading a biography of one of those spectacular athletes. He said that his goal was to become the ball. I never really knew what the heck that meant until one day a new student arrived at the junior high where I was working.

He was a very tall African American 9Th grader who was obsessed, no, absorbed with basketball. Every minute he was awake, he carried a basketball around with him. The administration decided not to follow their own rules about what was appropriate in class. He did not "play" with it- he just held it wherever he went; every class, lunch, the locker room- everywhere. It reminded me of when I had babies- I could cook a meal, answer the phone or read a book while holding the child. I fully understood what it meant to "become" the ball. It was, indeed, an extension of this young man. I never found out if he made it to the NBA. but if determination had anything to do with it, I am sure he did.

That is Augie. She has found every ball we now have- we have never purchased one of them for her. It is so odd to see her dive off of the trail and come back with a new tennis ball. She carries it all the way home. When we get home, she places it carefully in your track, so that it is almost impossible to ignore. When the vet was out to examine Sport's leg for a lameness issue, she was able to place the ball directly under his foot. Just in order to continue the exam, he had to throw the ball to the side to get it out of the way. Augie caught it on the first bounce.

She knows how to bounce the ball, too. She drops it and catches it over and over, like a kid who has a new ball and some time to kill. I can't tell you how many times I have shoveled the ball up in the pile of manure I was working on in my stall-cleaning chores. Yes- I had to fish it out. She sniffs with the ball in her mouth, pees and poops with the ball in her mouth. She even barks with the ball in her mouth.

I am not sure of how many people have a personal mission statement, but Augie Doggie certainly does. And she works on it every day!