Poor Tor

He just can't catch a break.  Not only is he not faster than Gata he can't even steal a stick from her!  He is finding out what many dogs (and helpers) have before him - Gata does not give up what is in her mouth.  She may not thrash and fight to win it from another dog but once she has it she holds it hard and calm and does not let go.  All of Tor's thrashing only leads to him loosening his grip and her stealing it away ;-)  Poor boy.

And to add insult to injury, Gata was also schooling him on the strategic use of speed and acceleration in the park this morning.  He just cannot catch her.  He cuts the corners and she just turns on her turbo boost for a moment and accelerates away from him. 

Really fun to watch them run and play in the park this morning.  No toys involved, except for the stick that Tor picked up and Gata stole ;-)  They also like to wrestle a little.  As usual for Tor, he gets over aroused while wrestling and starts to play too rough.  I usually step in quickly to break it up.  However, Gata took matters into her own hands this morning and told him off seriously a couple of times.  Very rare instances of Gata actually getting angry (or something like that, though I am anthropomorphizing here).  Tor seemed to recognize the difference instantly and wisely high tailed it out of there. 

I was quite happy to see that since Tor normally seems to like to fight.  Hopefully, this bodes well for the future with the 2 of them.  I hope that Tor will allow Gata to rule the roost but am not sure it will turn out that way.  Fortunately, though Gata is very dominant she is not obnoxious about it and has previously been quite happy to allow other strong dogs in her home.  Clearly she and Tor already have a pretty good relationship.  I just hope it stays that way as Tor gets older and spends less time in the x-pen.  I guess time will tell ...