A Boy and His Dog

One of the reasons I decided to get a dog was for Dakota. Having never been around dogs in his life, he was one scared two-year-old. I couldn't let him be afraid of a dog. We had looked at a lot of breeds but none seemed to fit as much as a Basset Hound. My grandpa once described these dogs as half a dog high and two dogs long. Anything this funny looking could never breed fear in a child. So far, Dakota has proven me wrong. If Dog Dot Com comes anywhere near him, he freaks completely out. If these two were going to ever hit it off, I was going to have to step in. I did the one thing that I knew would bring a kid and a dog together, I brought out a baseball. Now I didn't expect a two-year-old boy and a nine-week-old puppy to immediately become friends or even start playing ball effectively and I wasn't disappointed. After hitting each of them in the head a couple of times with the ball, I quickly decided we needed to switch to a softer ball. At the end of an hour of playing catch, I am happy to report someone has been trained to play ball, me. The both have got me throwing the ball and then retrieving it. When I bring it back, Dakota cheers and Dog Dot Com wags her tail. I am beginning to wonder who is smarter, me or the kid and the dog. In the end though, it was all worth it. Dakota has made a new friend and they are both out in the back yard together constantly. Every hour or so, they will both come find me in the house and ask if I will come out and play ball some more. There is nothing quite like a boy and his dog to make life complete.