I've had two dogs - well my family has - both collies. The first was a bearskin which is a cross between a collie and lab. It has both the collie desire to play and the lab desire for laziness - so when it got out from home we found out it had 2-3 houses it used to visit for food and frolicks in the local area. It was called Harry but when he would, er, cock his leg my parents said they would get a "Harriet" the next time.
So when he died at 18 we did and she was called Harriet - this time a full collie. At the time she was a puppy I was a student so had study time at home (both my parents worked) so I was tasked with house training (poop scooping) and of course play - at least a thousand throws of a ball every day.
About 15 years later when my parents were divorced and Harriet was with my dad and she was by this time old, creaky and mostly blind - whenever I came for a visit she would come for a 'sniff' and then hunt out a ball from somewhere and drop it for throwing even though she had no idea where it would go. You had to do it and then of course lead her to sniffing distance so she could have a game.
Miss them both.
Thats a smile for now.
EDIT Harry was named after this chap.
