The Easter Bunny Came To Our Yard

Happy Easter everyone. We want to invite you to our 6th Annual Easter Something Hunt. But first we have an important message. We got word last night that our friend Jed (from Jed and Abby in Merryland) has been diagnosed with Eosinophalic Masticatory Myositis which is also known as masticatory muscle myositis and is the same disease that our Samba suffers with.

Jed's Mom and I have been in touch and if we can help them thru this, we'll sure try. Jed could use the Power Of The Paw right about now. POTP has sure gotten a workout lately. Jed and Abby don't have a blog, but they do check in with us, so I'll relay any messages you might want to send them.

Now for the hunt!  Rob and I have been doing this on and off for 15 years with many different dogs and it's something they all seem to enjoy. This year we were presented with a new challenge. Morgan and Tsar are too old and delicate to take part in the hunt with all the enthusiastic Water Dogs. We didn't want them getting knocked down or having to fight for a treat, so they had their own hunt before the others.

Morgan and Tsar were happy to get to play and came into the front yard not knowing what to expect.

What's that on the rock? It's a piece of Beggin Strips. Bacon is Morgan's favorite food and we wanted something easy for the old timers to find and something tasty for them to enjoy.

Tsar found one right away. As you can see they weren't hidden well. Tsar is too weak to spend a lot of time hunting for hidden treats, so these were hidden in plain sight.

Morgan spotted the one on the rock.

These two quickly got the idea and kept us running from treat to treat.

I'm really glad these two older, unwell dogs were able to participate in something fun.

Morgan was sorry to see that all the bacon had been found.

Next it was on to the back yard where the more active group waited. They were confined to the garage while Rob and I "hid" the treats. In years past we've used dog biscuits of various types and they all worked well. Last time we hid carrots and though they were eventually found, it was much harder for the dogs. Apparently carrots don't have much of an odor to guide them. This year we got creative and decided on cheese balls.

Instead of actually hiding them, we tossed some into the grass. No we didn't use the whole jar. There will be many other parties using the rest of the cheese balls. We thought the bright color and cheesy smell would make it easy to find them. We were wrong.

 Release the hounds!

They came charging out into the yard, but ran right over the cheese balls. We had to point them out, then the dogs got the idea and the hunt was on.

I'm always surprised by how quickly dogs catch on to this exercise. But I'm also always surprised that some dogs just never do figure it out. Tess has never been able to catch the concept behind this hunt. Every year we escort her to a hidden treat and point it out to her. She'll eat it, then look up at us totally

confused as to what to do next.

 If she does manage to spot a treat by herself, she usually loses it to a quicker dog.

 No one else had any trouble gobbling up lots of cheese balls.

 I finally broke down and fed Tess some cheese balls. I couldn't stand seeing her so dejected while her pack mates were having so much fun.

The cheese balls were disappearing and everyone was starting to head back to the house.

But there was still one left in the grass and look who found it, all by herself. Tess was our big winner. She only found one cheese ball, but she did it without any help.

What a fun day. We hope the Easter bunny brought something fun to your house.