home

Life is the Ball

1   2    next page ›

S

ome dogs, like humans, are prone to multitasking. When not sniffing, scratching or watching each other, they’re eating or thinking about food. The downside to this generalist behavior is they excel at nothing in particular. Not Rika, Steve Leech’s 5-year old black Labradoodle. “For Rika”, Steve says, “life is the ball”. A yellow tennis ball that is. For showing multi-taskers how to focus on one thing, Rika is awarded TownDock.net’s July Pet Of The Month.

Steve and Rika

They’re a familiar sight. Evenings, Steve and Rika can be seen strolling around Oriental -Steve, leash and ball-throwing widget in hand, Rika, black and curly, bounding after yellow balls. Steve visits with other folks. Rika doesn’t. She doesn’t care what they have to say. She just wants Steve to throw the ball. The bond between dog and ball is so strong, Steve says it’s “part of her karma”. Which means he has to throw lots of balls.

Steve visits with Walt Kowal. Rika has something else in mind.

On a given evening, Steve will throw the ball 30 times. It will travel, on average, 100 feet. Given that he walks Rika “365 days a year”, that means he throws the ball a fair distance – over 200 miles annually. Rika, because she chases and retrieves the ball, travels twice as far in pursuit, over 400 miles. (Calculation note: actual distance may be slightly shorter. Steve admits some lobs come up short because they “end up in the water”.)

How far Rika chases a ball every year

So how does a man throw a ball over one million feet per year? A few years ago, Steve would have done it by hand. But he admits that, in the course of throwing a frisbee to an earlier dog (more on this in a bit) he threw out his shoulder. So throwing a ball roughly halfway from Oriental to Bermuda each year was out.

Enter the widget.

To meet Rika’s endless demand for thrown balls, Steve uses what he calls his “throw stick.” Partly it’s to keep from bending over to pick up the ball each time Rika deposits it at his feet for another throw. Partly, it’s so “I don’t have to touch the ball” which is covered in Rika’s slobber.

Why Steve uses a throw stick

Mostly, though, Steve uses the throw stick for distance. A three-foot length plastic with a pronged end that grasps that ball, it allows Steve to hurl Rika’s balls farther than he could throw them by hand. While he spends most of his time throwing them around the Wildlife Ramp parking area, for variation, he flings them “over the Oriental bridge”, though he doesn’t do it often “because of the cars”. In Rika’s eyes, he says, “the throw stick has made me a hero.”

While Steve relies on specialized equipment to play ball, Rika relies on her own – her hearing. When Steve lofts the ball, Rika “runs out first”, pauses to listen, then “works out to where that ball will land”. Her senses have become so fine tuned, she often catches the ball before it lands.

Caught on the fly: Rika catches a ball before it strikes the ground

Trouble is, Rika becomes attached to her balls, especially the old, battered ones. “Give her 20 new balls”, Steve says, “and she’ll go to the old skinned one”. This is unfortunate because just when Rika has fallen in love with a ball, it invariably falls “into a faulty state” where it lands with a thud and won’t bounce. Which means it’s time to throw the ball out.

Here a bit of subterfuge is in order.

Along Steve and Rika’s walking route is a dumpster, into which he tosses the spent balls. “When I throw them into the dumpster, she goes into mourning” Steve says. For the next few days, Rika, separated from her beloved toy, is known to circle the steel repository, searching out her missing ball “because that’s where she last saw it….”

Nooo…..! Steve shows TownDock.net staff – and a horrified Rika – where dead tennis balls go.

1   2    next page ›

Know a pet that is a standout? Send in some details and a photo to pet@towndock.net. Tell why that pet deserves the coveted TownDock.net Pet of the Month Prize Package --- accolades, a pat on the head (snakes excluded) and a box of Milk Bones ( or snack suitable for the species). We regret that we cannot offer a college scholarship to Pet Of The Month winners. Animals caught near the HarborCam attempting to suck up to the judges will be disqualified.