i'm intrigued by this dog of yours that could climb trees. very interesting.
I have no idea why he got into the habit. But he was a real character and it was just something he seemed to have fun with. He was astonishingly good at jumping. We have a six and a half foot wall that separates our garden from a small road on the other side and the first time Patch leapt over it, after a carelessly thrown ball, we just stood and gaped.
After that he'd do it regularly if you didn't watch him. One leap and his front paws were on the top, a quick scrabble with the hindlegs and he'd be up and over. He was an adverturer, was Patch. Nothing delighted him more than skipping out and taking off for the day on some adventure or other. We learned to live with it. He'd come back 24 hours later looking extremely smug and not a little guilty, sometimes beaten about as one of his great joys was scrapping with other dogs. I suspect he was up to other things too as there were a suspicious number of dogs in the neighbourhood in later years with a distinct resemblance to our maverick.
But I digress...trees. He'd find one that had a low slung limb and jump onto it. Then work his way to the top. It wasn't unusual for my brother or I to take Patch out for a walk and then come back wearily some time later to get Dad to go fetch him down from a tree. Dad was the only one he'd listen to and come back down for.
"Dad! He's up a tree again!" was a familiar cry during my teen years.
of course, the thing i find most interesting in all this is the discovery that labrat owns a lab.
ROTFL!
LabRat
