Bringing Scooby Home

Baby Chet with New Scooby

I'm getting kind of sentimental about the end of our game, Moving Scooby-Doo. Scooby-Doo started out as a yard toy, one that Chet liked so much he punctured. Here's a picture when both Chet and Scooby were new. When we started on a walk one day, Chet brought Scooby along, for a surprising distance along our trail. When he finally lost interest and left the ball lying along the trail, the idea for the game was born. This hike takes 45 minutes if we hustle quickly. I thought it would be a good challenge to see if Chetty could move the ball in stages until he got it all the way around the Loop. And, on the 25th, it seems we're within striking distance of our goal. One more walk will do it.
The worst part was getting the ball past where a bunch of semi-tame dogs roam. If they hear us creeping down the nearby trail, they open up a salvo of barking, and once a couple of them came out to meet us. Moving Scooby is a noisy game--I cheer Chet on to longer and longer carries--and it was hard to encourage him in whispers. But we did it. Chet seemed to understand that we needed to get it up and out of the stream valley and away from the dogs, and he carried it up an enormous slope in only two relays.
Liam came on the penultimate hike, inspiring Chet to new records for long-distance carries. He'd run ahead, then wait and call.
By now, Scoob was pretty careworn, and was in real danger of being destroyed before he got home. Whumpa whumpa whumpa! Chet would shake him from side to side, ripping a big hole in him and occasionally getting the whole thing over his head.
Our last hike was the 26th of January, when Chet finally succeeded in bringing Scooby home. He was as excited as we were, alternately posing, head high, and shaking the tar out of Scoob.
Seeing the house gave him wings, and he dashed to the finish line.
You'd think, having carried this thing almost two miles over hill and dale, that he'd be tired of it, but he played for the next half-hour, parading the ragged scrap around the yard and showing it to everyone.
There's probably nothing a Boston terrier won't do for a little praise.