Such an athlete

Thanks to the lovely weather that we've been having lately, I've had a lot of time to play outside with Aston. He likes to play frisbee, but I don't think that he's quite got the concept of it down yet. I'll throw the frisbee for him, he'll run after it and then sit down to chew it, refusing to give it back. So I inevitably have to trick him to get it back. Often this involves me kicking a soccer ball around to distract while I step on the frisbee so that he can't run away with it. Other times I'll throw a another ball to him, but his tennis ball met an untimely end on Friday when the gardener ran over it with his lawnmower.
I found a big green ball that he enjoyed playing with. I went back inside for a little while and I could hear Aston barking so I went to see what he was wrong. The ball had become stuck in the corner of the fence. I kicked it out for him and went back inside. He started barking again just a few minutes later. When I went outside, he was sitting at the side of the pool barking at the ball because it was on the pool cover that Aston refuses to walk on (he doesn't like the feel of the water moving beneath him). So I got the pool skimmer and grabbed the ball again. Then later on, he was barking once more. This time, however, the ball was flat - he had burst it and was apparently not too happy.
I've also taught him how to jump over things. I set up two of our outside chairs and put a foam noodle that we have for the pool in between them. He got that down really quickly, with the help of some treats. I showed it to Mum and Dad and they suggested that I add a second jump, to make it kind of like hurdles. He immediately understood that he was to jump over both of them in a row. We cheered and gave him lots of treats.

Here are some pictures of him having fun in the garden: