<p style="text-align:center;"><em>A Guest Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara</em></p>
Linus has a blanket.

Christopher Robin has a bear.

Tucker has a ball – an orange jingle ball to be exact.  He actually has several balls – a blue one, a green one – but the orange one is his favorite.  Perhaps it's the jingle noise it makes that is so attractive. <a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/tucker-and-ball.png"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4058" alt="tucker and ball" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/tucker-and-ball.png?w=300" width="300" height="264" /></a>

Whatever it is, Tucker has been known to fall asleep with this ball between his paws.  Whenever he is feeling stressed, he finds his jingle ball.

If you throw the ball, he will bring it back – again and again.

Rachel trained him to drop it right at her feet.

For a while, our morning routine consisted of whoever sat in a particular chair threw Tucker’s ball for him. If I happened to be in the kitchen fixing breakfast, the thrower would yell “incoming” as a warning.

On several occasions they forgot and I got pegged by the infamous orange jingle ball.

If he is feeling ignored, Tucker will throw his ball under a piece of furniture or the stove.  Then he will bark until someone retrieves it.  I would say he has us well trained.

One time a visiting young boy accidentally threw the orange jingle ball on the roof.  Tucker was inconsolable.  We lasted about two days before someone had to climb up and get it.

After that we insisted that the orange ball be his <strong>inside</strong> ball.

Unfortunately the green ball was too difficult to see outside in the yard, so I allowed Tucker to bring his orange ball outside for me to throw as I took care of the chickens. I did accidentally throw the ball into the chicken yard a couple of times.  The chickens thought it was food.

This fall the leaves in our Texas town were particularly pretty.  Not quite as stunning as when we lived in Connecticut but beautiful for here.  It did present a problem – though.  The orange jingle ball was difficult to spot.

<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/orange-ball-in-leaves.png"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4059" alt="orange ball in leaves" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/orange-ball-in-leaves.png?w=300" width="300" height="168" /></a>

We have begun the search for a replacement ball in case this one really disappears.

So far we have had no success.  So we will continue to guard Tucker’s security ball for everyone’s sake.