A Willy Story: Willy & Zooka, the Fight

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Willy is a Goldendoodle who boards with us at The Light of Dog regularly. We sometimes joke that we share custody of him since he's here so often. When dogs board with us, we keep a Boarding Log where we post daily updates and photos. We could write a book with all of Willy's adventures here, so we thought we would share a few of his stories. This is an excerpt from Willy's log, dated 11/3/21.

Willy ate his breakfast while I walked Zooka and Blitzen. Then I took Zooka and Willy out later.

At first, I was just going to take Willy separately, but decided to take Zooka along to see if they would play and have more fun if Blitzen was not in the mix. And at first, it worked.

They got one of their elaborate games of Chase going. One of the longest ever. And things were good.

Until they weren’t.

Willy got tired of waiting for Zooka to drop the stick and walk off so Willy could take it. So Willy decided he was going to take it anyway.

And Zooka was not happy. And Willy was not happy. And they got into a fight.

There have been some growly moments in the past, but no one ever escalated and things would move on. But not today.

They went at it and I had to step in and break it up. Fortunately, I almost always have my hiking pole with me (for this and other reasons) and I was very glad I did today. I used it to insert between the two before I put my body in between.

And Willy took the stick and moved away and Zooka moved away the other way.

I had to take a minute with everyone apart to get calmed down a bit. Then Willy came and joined us down the hill. Since Ed was not here, I had our handyman meet us and take Willy on leash, and I took Zooka and we walked back to the house. Walk got cut short so I could separate and make sure everyone had time to calm down just in case.

So, we are all separated and taking some down time.

NOTE: Fortunately, there were no physical injuries. Fights are always scary, but in this case, there did not appear to be any intent to do harm by either dog. No blood drawn, no puncture wounds, no injuries, no medical care needed. Just a lot of adrenaline pumping. Mostly mine.