Have you watched kids play, or maybe you remember games you played as a kid?

Hide and seek was always a favorite that evolved as we grew older.  We made our own rules, like placing limitations on where you could hike or time limits. Then there was kick the can. I can’t recall the rules only the part of kicking the can before being tagged by whoever was guarding it.

But these days “kicking the can” has become a familiar phase used by politicians when failing to address our municipal financial woes. We’re told prior administrations “kicked the can down the road” in order not to increase taxes when they failed to address conditions of our schools or inadequately funded pensions.

I’ve been on a mini vacation and not thinking of taxes. Or, at least I’m making a conscious effort to forget them. Games and how we play them came to mind watching our family dogs interact.

And the players are:

Nash, my son Ted’s nine-year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, a distinguished canine that looks the part of the royalty that bred him to be a lap accessory only he loves tromping in shallow lakeside waters and delighting in rolling in a dead fish if he’s lucky enough to find one.

Sunny, my elder son’s golden Labrador. She wags perpetually, never growls and at less than two years is an adorable puppy. She’s been well trained. Sits when told and at least 90 percent of the time comes when called. One thing neither Jack nor Jen have been able to cure, however, is her of eating just about everything. 

And then there’s our companion, Farrah, a rescue somewhere between Nash and Sunny in size and also still a puppy.

Farrah and Sunny are the best of friends. They skip the preliminaries of sniffing and peeing and get right down to play. This entails playful wrestling and chewing of each other’s tails and legs and, drinking from the small water bowl simultaneously.

When they tired of this, Jack stepped in, throwing a three-foot long, heavy stick into the brush beyond the lawn. Sunny followed by Farrah plunged into the undergrowth.  Nash watched from his perch on the porch. The two pups emerged triumph, each carrying an end of the stick. Sunny’s tail rotated clockwise. Farrah, a mix of corgi and German shepherd has a stub of a tail. It was swinging, too.

The games were about to begin. First it was tug of war. War is really a misnomer when it comes to canine play. Sunny clearly had the weight advantage. She’d prance about showing off her prize while Farrah futilely sought to pull it away. They were having fun.  Then the stick broke. Each had a piece. Would this end the game? No. Sunny went after Farrah.

Was this a human trait – wanting what someone else has even though you have plenty? I waited to see if Farrah would now give up the short end of the stick and risk grabbing the longer one?

Meanwhile, Ted handed Nash, the elderly gentleman, who watched a stick. He obliged by chewing an end. Neither of the pups paid attention. With a firm bite on her stick, Farrah took off with Sunny in pursuit. It was a game of catch me if you can. They rounded a bush, disappearing. By the fifth loop around the bush, Sunny was winded and waited for Farrah. When she did, she threw herself, missing Farrah. Finally, it was time for a drink.

Farrah dropped her stick. It was Sunny’s chance to snatch it. But she didn’t. Farrah raised her head from the bowl, jowls dripping. Sunny’s head disappeared, her slobbering resonating from the stainless steel bowl. The two contestants faced one another, panting and tongues lolling.

If only we could be so willing to have fun and keep it a game, the world would be a better place.