It is a well known fact that my motto is “Fetch Is Life!” However, you may be surprised to learn that despite being a natural athlete and a retriever, I needed to be taught how to play my favorite game. Spoiler Alert: It wasn’t Lemmy who taught me.

Lemmy took a different approach and enjoyed playing “Har, Har, I have the Ball and You Don’t.” Those rules were simple. One toss of the ball, and Lemmy was off to the races, running around the yard at full sprint with his prized possession. If someone dared to try to get the ball from him, he would gleefully zig and zag around them, much to his delight and the dismay of others. Usually this game ended one of two ways. Mom would refuse to chase him and he’d get bored of running. Or after countless laps around the yard, Lemmy would get tired and lay down. Either way, as a puppy it was a disappointing game for me, because Lemmy somehow managed to always get the ball first. That is until Milo came to visit. 

Milo, a fellow Golden Retriever, was my favorite neighbor, who often came over to play with us. On one such visit, we were out in the yard about to play “Har, Har, I Have the Ball and You Don’t,” when just as Mom threw the ball Milo rocketed past us and caught it before Lemmy. No surprise there. Milo was the most athletic dog I’ve ever known. What did surprise me was what he did next. Rather than run with reckless abandon with our ball, while myself and Lemmy followed. Milo trotted over to Mom and dropped the ball at her feet. Mom petted him on the head. Praised him for being a “good boy,” which were words she rarely said during Lemmy’s version of the game. Then Mom threw the ball again! 

I had to watch a few rounds of this before I finally understood what was happening. Fetch didn’t have to end after one toss of the ball. Fetch could go on and on for hours as long as the ball was returned to Mom! Better yet, sometimes Milo would let Lemmy or myself get the ball too. This was a real game changer! From that point forward, I was determined to only play by Milo’s rules! Oh sure Lemmy was a bit disappointed at first by our new game. However, despite being a slow learner, he too, grew to like this version better. By the time Asa joined our family, I was proud to teach him my favorite game, and Milo was more than happy to join us whenever he heard in the distance the squeak of our ball.

Thank you Milo for being my mentor, and teaching me my favorite game! The neighborhood just isn’t the same since you moved away a few years ago. However, I have no doubt wherever you are today, you’re still playing fetch! Because after all, Fetch Is Life!