Nothing breaks up the monotony of a boring day quite like a good chase. It’s great exercise, excellent practice for eye-mouth coordination, and really, really fun. Chasing is also an ancient ritual of our species that directly led to many important cultural advancements, including fetch, bird-dogging and even doggy-paddling.

In practice, you can chase anything that moves: remote-control cars, toddlers, cats, imagined things – the list goes on and on. In order to keep the list manageable, we’ve only included the best inanimate chasing objects. We’ve left animals off this list to cover in greater detail later.

RULES

The golden rule of chasing is to never take your eye off of the chase thingy. Doing so will make you aware of all the other things around you that you could also be chasing, and you know what you end up catching when you try to chase two things at once? Nothing. And not catching something you are chasing is no fun, especially if what you’re chasing is capable of laughing at you.

Frisbee

Of all the things you can chase, the Frisbee is the most entertaining. It seems to just hover in mid-air like a bird, but it’s much easier to catch because it eventually comes down. You’ll find that they’re remarkably easy to sink your teeth into when you catch one. When your owner tries to reclaim it, don’t let it go until the last possible moment. Caution: A Frisbee’s trajectory can waver, wobble and turn abruptly once airborne depending on the wind and/or how much your owner throws like a girl. Never trust a Frisbee until it is firmly in your mouth, or else it is liable to quickly change course and smack you in the head.

Balls

The ball comes in two fun shapes: round and oval. Unlike a Frisbee, a ball tends to move erratically once it hits the ground, just like an animal. Great! Get a good sense of your terrain in order to anticipate the path a ball might take. For reasons dogs do not understand, balls seem to favour rolling down hills rather than rolling up them. The oval balls are hard to grab hold of unless they are made of soft foam, in which case you can really go to town and rip them to pieces. Round rubber or tennis balls bounce longer, and you can even catch them in mid-bounce!

Sticks

Sticks are just small pieces of tree, but they hold a very special place in dog–human history, as many believe they were the first objects thrown to canines by man. However, they aren’t designed to travel very far. Mostly, they are good for playing fetch (see the chapter entitled ‘The Formal Rules of Fetch’). Just be cautious. There are some stick-like objects that move and might even bite you. Remember this rule: If it tries to bite you, it is not a stick. It is a snake. Do not grab a snake.

Your tail

The great thing about your tail is that it is always there, ready for a good time. Even when you are in trouble for licking the steak and kidney pie and no one will play with you, your tail is up for being chased. It sits behind you, wagging, just asking you to go after it. If you are a breed that has a short tail, or no tail, or you had a tail and then lost it, this is obviously a challenge. In this case, you can substitute ‘behind’ for ‘tail’, even though it doesn’t quite wag the same. The question then is whether you can catch it or not. The answer is that it doesn’t matter. In this case the thrill is in the chase. And the chase is awesome.

Cars

PLEASE NOTE: This is for advanced chasers

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