When, years ago, my husband and I shared our home with our little Pomeranian-Poodle mix, a miniature-sized little female, she became socialized on our many walks in our neighbourhood forested ravine coming across other dogs. She also played often with our daughter's Malamute-Shepherd mix, a few years older than she was. And Button had her playtoys, none that she loved more than a pale green tennis ball. That ball, actually, turned out to be more than one ball over the years. Though she loved the ball and we daily played with her where she would race after it, retrieve and return it to us for another toss, she would also settle down to chew on it. Eventually the original ball's integrity was compromised; it sprung itself into pieces and Button was disconsolate. My husband, ever enterprising when Button spurned one replacement after another, took to placing the old split carapace of the original ball over substitutes and after a few days, the new one took on the odour of the old one, and Button accepted it and adopted it as the original beloved ball reborn.

When we introduced our toy Poodle Riley into the household, we anticipated that Button would enjoy his company and become a mentor to him, that they would play together, sleep together, become friends. That expectation was dashed from day one. Button kept her distance and ensured that Riley would keep his exuberant young distance from her. She remained aloof from him for the next dozen years of their lives together, until she died at 19 years and four months and he was twelve. Button remained, throughout that period, fixated on her ball (succession of balls) and Riley, emulating her chose not a ball but a tiny green plastic frog to be his companion-toy, racing after it when it was thrown for him, and then retrieving it. His relationship with the frog did not have the deep dimensions of Button's for her ball, though.

Now that Riley too left us at a despairingly early age of 15, we have two siblings who resemble Button physically but with characteristics all their own, and neither Jackie or Jillie is interested very much in toys; they still prefer hunting down socks, slippers, mittens to covet with our odour on them though they do occasionally have fun with plush squeaky toys. When we toss a tennis ball, Jillie barely responds, while Jackie does with great enthusiasm, but an enthusiasm that swiftly dissipates. They don't need balls to become fixated on for entertainment and 'company'; they have one another to tag with, to tussle, wrestle, box and snuggle with.

On occasion, in the ravine, we may come across some lost ball, or part of a ball and it's obvious that some dog will have been distraught at the experience. We often wondered why it is that their owners allow them to take their beloved balls on walks and risk their being lost, since we're aware of how vital balls can be to the dogs that depend on them for comfort and some kind of assurance. Yesterday, we came across a woman whom we've lately seen on occasion in the ravine with her large black, shaggy dog. She was down at the creek's edge, seemingly searching for something, her dog beside her, head tilted expectantly toward her. She explained that her dog had lost its ball. They had both seen it slide down the ice-glazed snow bank above the creek and watched it tumble into the muddy roiling spring runoff, an orange blob bouncing around among the other seasonal detritus that ends up in the creek.

So they had headed off in the same direction the creek was tumbling into in the hopes that at the bend of its trajectory the ball would become mired among the pile-up of detritus and it could be saved from loss. They looked for the bright orange sphere and waited for it to appear, but it failed to. Obviously it had been caught up in the tangle of detritus on its way to the bend. The woman and her dog were both standing deep in the snowpack, alert and patient, but to no avail. Finally, they decided to make their way back toward the halfway mark between the bend and where the ball had fallen down the bank of the creek. The dog, large as she was, struggled to gain footing and make her way up the fairly gentle slope of the bank at that point of the creek. The woman, middle-aged, laughed when we offered her a hand up and had no difficulty making it on her own. Concerned that her trusting dog would end up sadly disappointed with her efforts she resolved to continue the search.

An hour later we came across them again, proceeding toward us, the dog jaunty, that orange ball firmly in its mouth, its shaggy black pelt still dripping with water from the creek when it had sighted its moored ball and retrieved it.