Zelador quite likes carrying the ridged ball. I got to thinking… perhaps he can learn how to play basketball. I talked with Bill last night and he led me through the early development of the game. Initially a ball was thrown into a bushel basket. However, retrieving it became time-consuming and a hole was made in the basket’s bottom. When a ball landed in the basket someone grabbed a pole, pushed it through the hole and the ball came out. Finally the hole was made large enough for the ball to come through the bottom. Hmmm…
He agreed that some type of “basket” ball would be interesting to the boys.
Today two ladies came to watch me with the Lusitanos. I started with Zelador. He was incredibly laid back… at the beginning. During this abnormally “quiet” time the ladies and I set up the “goal” (four of the blok by blok system for jumping. These are placed parallel to each other with two on each side. Zelador carries the ball to the goal, dropping the ball between the bloks, and SCORES!) I tossed/rolled the ridged ball past him. He walked to it, picked it up and carried it towards the goal. BUT instead of dropping it and scoring, he raised his head to look outside the arena. Our windows open downwards so he has to stretch upwards to see what’s going on out there. For a split second it looked like he was going to open his mouth and drop the ball OUTSIDE of the arena! I quickly caught his attention and he turned his head towards me. Whew! But within a few seconds he was looking out of the window with the ball dangling precariously on the window’s edge. Once again I caught his attention… (Yes, you guessed it, Zelador had created a new game and was enjoying himself immensely!) He did this “tease Winnie by threatening to drop the ball outside” two more times, then politely placed the ball into the goal.
A few hours later I was thinking back on the incident. Somehow he’d read my mind… not accurately, mind you, but he’d read it nonetheless! He had captured an image from my brain, an image of dropping things from a height. If I don’t keep an eye on him he’ll take this game one step further and start tossing things out the window. I can see the bunny FLYING through the air…
