Jack is a happy dog. He doesn’t much like being on his own but apart from that, as Roger Daltrey says, ‘you couldn’t prevent Jack from feeling happy.’
His absolute favourite thing to do though is have a trip to the beach. We take him down to Hunmanby Gap 2 or 3 times a week at least but he would actually spend his whole life there, retrieving balls, making friends and having a swim. He doesn’t understand the concept of sitting still on a beach at all and is in a perpetual state of ecstasy until it is time to slouch back to the car.
We on the other hand get a bit bored with it. It really is a great beach but we’ve walked up and down it a few hundred times now and chucking balls for Jack can get a bit tedious. To vary things at the weekend Paul decided to throw the ball up the cliff.
The cliffs are not sheer but they are very, very steep. Jack didn’t skip a beat. He followed the ball up the cliff and ran up and down and along like Spiderman several times until he located beloved ball. He was very nonchalant is if to say, ‘It’s ma job.’ He doesn’t often impress us but be were quite awestruck.
I used to worry when we walked cliff paths that he might topple over the edge but 4 legs are definitely better than 2 and he is absolutely surefooted (I on the other hand slipped on the mud at Flamborough during a gentle stroll earlier this year and was out of action for several weeks.)
Here’s a photo of Jack, in anticipation of a ball being thrown.