But since Tas requires so much extra running, we've found a neat way to make sure he gets it.

Sidenote - we decided when he was a puppy not to introduce tennis balls right away, because Gray had done that with Rezi, and now she's obsessed. Very obsessed. One time she broke one of her doggie toes because she was stepping on the tennis ball to make it pop up so she could chase it. It's hard to put a cast on a doggie toe! We didn't want Tas to be like that...but hindsight's 20/20, right? We should've made him obsessed, because all it would take is this GoDogGo Automatic Tennis Ball Launcher - and we'd be fat and happy!

But since we didn't want to be fat, (happy, yes...fat, no) we left the tennis balls to Rezi. Now we're having to get creative to find ways to make sure he gets enough exercise. And as we quickly learned, not enough exercise means destruction in his book.

Since Tas won't chase tennis balls, or do any sort of running if there aren't other dogs to chase or humans running with him, we needed to come up with a plan.

Our solution...a little something I like to call "Slingshot Running." We go to the track by our house, Owen starts running around the track with Tas, while I walk to warm up. After I've walked a few warm up laps, Owen is tired of running and needs a break...so he runs to me, and I grab Tas' leash and run from there. I run until I can't run anymore, catch up with Owen and he takes over running again. By running in little spurts, Tas is able to go until he can't go anymore, and we're able to get our running in. Last night between the two of us, Tas ran 13 laps!!

Owen has to practice sprinting (to catch the bad guys...yes...stupid people do run from the po-po and he's got to be able to catch them), and I've started to try and sprint (or at least run very fast) around during my last lap. Last night when I did that, I was literally dragging Tas along, because he couldn't keep up!

So I'd say mission accomplished. We all get our exercise and no $150 machine needed. Although I think that'd be worth the money for Rezi and no more broken toes!