Comment by delichon

I grew up with a cocker spaniel obsessed with tennis balls to the point of covering his food with them and letting it rot. Looking into his eyes conveyed no emotion and he didn't seem to care much for affection. He was a tennis ball tracking machine.

There was nothing you could do to satiate his desire. If you gave in to a catch session, you could throw it 100 times, he would start coughing/convulsing from exhaustion, yet still drop a ball at your feet begging you to throw it. You could probably have killed him with it.

If no one was playing catch with him he would spend hours scouring the neighborhood for balls hidden in bushes. At one point I believe he had over 20 balls piling up in various places in our backyard. We would regularly take his balls away so he only had a couple, but more would magically appear.

We did have a little fun with this. My dad would use him as a tennis practice 'partner'. And we built a tennis ball cannon powered by M80s (note: this was mid-80s in the SFV when/where things like bottle rockets and blow guns were legal).

I've had to put down quite a few animals, and he was the only one were there was no sadness, only relief when his time came, esp. after 15 long years of having to pander to this obsessive behavior.

My belief is animals experience something similar to autism, and he was as far along the spectrum as possible, to the point where the only thing that defined him was his working instinct. That million years of mind-meld evolution w/ humans? Simply not there.

There’s some documentation out there suggesting the original Labrador retrievers had food obsession as a trait in common with bidability, which is why more than half of them end up chonky. Not all have the gene but odds are high.

There’s a guy who trawls dog rescues looking for retrievers who are toy obsessed and then trains them to hunt truffles. He reasons you can’t reward them with food for finding even tastier food, so you have to train them with ball time as a reward/distraction when they find a trove.

Watching a dog that likes playing fetch is cathartic. I truly wish I had that level of purpose and fulfillment in my life.

i have a Lab/Staffie mix and he has insane retriever drive when we get the tennis ball launcher out. pupils dilate and nothing else matters, to the point that we had to ban launcher because he kept loosing his thumb claws from sliding on the grass when the ground is too hard. Before we banned it his muscles were massive, rippling shoulders etc. When we had his (non-tennis) balls removed he developed insane food drive, the vet said this was common, to the point he'll raid the kitchen at night if we don't lock it down. The boy is build to do 1 of 2 things, eat or fetch!

I once stopped at a bar near a large train station in my hometown, next to a music club, alternative vibe etc.

Originally, I went there to pee after arriving from a long train commute.

Then I had a drink outside, it was a summer evening. And there was a group of people in the outside area of the bar with a dog, a tame Labrador/Golden-Retriever-like dog.

It was a good friendly dog, but it had a toy.

I got to know the dog because I threw the toy after the dog came to my table and the owners were bored.

10 minutes later, I felt increasingly stressed by the dog "forcing" me to throw the toy again and again :D

And that outside area was near, while not directly next to, a large road, which also was my final straw to get rid of my new companion before I left – the dog was running after a rolling, misthrown toy and almost ran into a cyclist on a smaller, non-car pathway next to the seatings.

I was completely overwhelmed at first by that dog's firm insistence on me throwing that toy over and over, after I had done it one time.

Same thing with our two Boykin Spaniels.

> As in I'm obligated to throw the damn ball.

Just imagining your retriever feeling obligated to sit patiently by your side as you contribute to the pack by deconstructing your life while staring lifelessly at a flashing screen.

> As in I'm obligated to throw the damn ball.

As opposed to my Newfoundland that will tease me with the ball and then I'm obligated to chase her until she wears out, I catch her, or I bribe her with a treat.

No take. Only throw.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/no-take-only-throw

I don't think I want another dog again after our Akita died. She was such a good pup. Big dog which does well living in smaller areas. Is defensive of family, but isn't necessarily over aggressive with human strangers. She was so quiet. The only time she barked you knew it was time to pay attention. I haven't owned many dogs so I don't know the degree to which personality is determined by individual or breed. But everything about our Kira was what I loved in dogs. And everything I loved about her is what stops me from getting another one. I just don't think they could live up to her example. And I cannot abide a noisy dog.

like serfs being susceptible to doom scrolling

The dog is not reflecting on its true nature. If that is true, then it's possible there are many beings, including us, who are not reflecting on their true nature. It shows the meditative power a human actually has. For example, if a parent actually sits down and realizes they'd die for their child no matter what, it would sort of be like the dog realizing how far it would go for a tennis ball. Only a human being can reflect and change, the dog cannot (it's one of the reasons humans fall in love with dogs, they realize the thing is utterly innocent).