Excercise

Petra took a moment to ponder while Lucy looked up at her expectantly. Valerie's wife had been kind so far, even showing sympathy when Lucy had reacted to the sight of the dog bed. But she was still a stranger, and Lucy was at her mercy. She had no way to know what she was in for.

Petra smiled at Lucy. "You spent the last couple hours in a cage, so I imagine you'll want to go outside and stretch your legs..."

Lucy was about to shake her head, afraid that Petra would go back on her word and take her for a walk in public, but Petra wasn't done speaking.

"...in the back yard."

The yard was fenced in. Safe from prying eyes but not so private that Petra would do anything bad there, Lucy hoped. She nodded, and Petra picked up her leash.

Lucy followed her second mistress through the house, noting with interest that she had picked up a yellow tennis ball on the way. When they reached the patio Petra instructed Lucy to sit, so she tucked her legs under and sat her butt on her heels, her hands by her knees in a pose somewhere between kneeling like a person and the way dogs sit.

This was apparently good enough for Petra, who gave her a pat on the head before unclipping the leash from her collar. "You wanna play fetch, girl?"

Now Lucy understood the tennis ball. She didn't look forward to crawling around the yard and using her mouth to carry the ball back to her mistress, but she could think of worse things to do. She smiled and nodded her head.

A second later the ball was flying through the air, and she turned to crawl after it onto the grass. She had trouble picking it up the first time and considered simply batting it over to her mistress using the back of her hand. She thought better of it though, and tried again until she figured out how to press the ball down so it wouldn't roll away while she opened her mouth wide to get her teeth around it.

Petra rewarded her with a scratch and a "good girl" when Lucy brought her the ball, then tossed it for her to retrieve again. It was a repetitive, but peaceful game, and after a few throws Lucy found herself enjoying it. She could see that Petra was having fun throwing the ball too. But Lucy wasn't used to moving around on her knees this much, and her jaw was getting sore from all the stretching.

Fortunately, Petra decided they'd played long enough when she noticed Lucy's discomfort. She took the ball, now damp with saliva, from Lucy and dropped it on the patio table. "That was fun, but let's get you inside now. I'll fill a bowl for you to drink up while we wait for Valerie to get back, and then we can set up a nice new bed to make you comfortable in your new home."