With Inoli's invention of "The Great Escape" game, the warning that Australian Shepherds would invent their own games came home to roost.  From that day forward we have dedicated ourselves to regular runs around the property and endless games of fetch the tennis ball.

But Jim just couldn't leave well enough alone.  His years of championing the cause of the human "underdog" wouldn't allow him to let this seemingly unfair game of fetch continue.

Inoli's awkwardness on the athletic field is partly a consequence of his lack of tear ducts.  The constant accumulation of sticky mucous in one's eyes can't help but affect ones vision, despite our faithful adherence to the owner's regimen of cleaning goo, adding artificial tears and treating with antibiotics.

So.... Jim endeavored to level the proverbial playing field.  His first scheme was to occasionally throw the ball directly to Inoli.  This was often futile, because Bhalu was so good.  A ball gently lofted to Inoli would be snatched out of mid-air by Bhalu passing between Jim and Inoli.  Jim began to feel like a second string quarterback passing to a bench warming receiver being defended by an all-pro cornerback.

Jim eventually learned that occasionally Inoli would get the ball if he threw it out in front of him at exactly the point at which his dim eyes would be expecting it to land.  With Jim's and Inoli's combined skill levels, this increased Inoli's catch ratio from one in fifty to one in ten.

Of course, on can ask whether all hell breaking loose very ten throws is an improvement over one in fifty.  It appears the conflict lies in Bhalu's and Inoli's different interpretations of the goal of the game.  Bhalu will chase the ball and return it all day.  Inoli wants possession of his "precious."  About the second time Inoli gets the ball, he will lie dow and start chewing on it, sticking out of one side of his mouth like the butt of a cigar, ignoring Bhalu's piercing barks in his ear.  We have decided this chewing is an effort to infuse the ball with his own saliva, thereby marking it as his own "precious."

Jim continued this new game of "keep away from Bhalu" for a while, until we learned what "all hell breaking loose" could really mean.  On occasion, the boys would reach the ball at the same time.  When this happened, the would each grab the ball, jaw to jaw,  and a terrifyingly intimate garme of tug of war would ensue.  Following these battles, the meeker Bhalu would seek refuge between Jim's knees with his teeth chattering, and would lose his enthusiasm for the game.  When we learned that it was possible that occcasionally a stray tooth would sink into an opponents lip, we took measures to avoid such encounters.

So Jim's next version of egalitarian fetch was to throw two balls.  This game was complicated by the dogs' different motivations.  Bhalu will chase whatever ball is thrown, but the jealous "Cain" Inoli is only interested in the ball that is currently in play, usually the one Bhalu has caught.

Inoli focuses on the ball with great concentration, staring at it in an effort to keep track of it with his poor eyes.  If Bhalu returns a ball to our feet, and we throw another one that was in our other hand, Inoli will ignore it.  If we throw another ball near where the ball "in play" had landed in order to trick him, he will sniff it and walk away.

The twa dogs way of returning the ball also betrays a different attitude.  Bhalu dashes back with the ball launching it out of his mouth at your feet panting, and often heads off eagerly to fetch the next throw.  Inoli ambles about as if he's chasing a butterfly, and then returns the ball to a place of his own choosing, sometimes behind you  or sometimes half way back from where you threw it.  His signal that he wants you to throw it again is to stare at it intently.

This behavioral dynamic has challenged Jim's skills at inventing egalitarian games.  Our current version is played like this.  Jim throws out one ball and keeps another in his pocket.  Nine times out of ten, Bhalu catches this ball.  So we're back to Bhalu chases the ball, and Inoli chases Bhalu.  When Inoli eventually catches the first ball, Jim throws the second ball to Bhalu, and we shift to the two ball game.

Jim throws it long for Bhalu, and a high short throw to Inoli, aimed so it will fall a few feet in front of him.  As long as the ball is bouncing into the air, Inoli can follow it; once it lays in the grass, he loses sight of it.  When this happens he begins  a zig zagging, sniffing search that may take a full minute, sometimes with him passing by the ball within six inches.

Experience has taught Jim that he must hold Bhalu's ball until Inoli has found his.  Sometimes throwing a second ball knocks Inoli off his scent.  But having two balls in play can also betray that even the purest Abel character possesses a little of the dark side.  Some times in his impatience Bhalu will look for Inoli's ball while still carrying his own in his mouth.  When he finds it, he will sometimes drop his own ball and pick up Inoli's.  When Inoli finds the supplanted ball, he recognize the ruse and goes chasing after Bhalu.

On occasion, Inoli's rage results in a most poignant image.  When Inoli approaches Bhalu with the intent of ripping the ball from his jaws, he walks up casually facing Bhalu and passes his snout parallel to Bhalu's, so his nose is near Bhalu's ear and voices a low growl.

This always reminds of a scene from one of our favorite "cult classic" movies, THE USUAL SUSPECTS.  The two fearless bad boys of the heist team, Hockney and McManus get into an argument over some loot.  Hockney slides his face within inches of McManus' in much the same position as Inoli does.  When the argument is resolved and the tension breaks, Hockney quips, "You wanna dance?"

Jim always pondered this scene as involving some underlying homosexual theme, but Diane sees it as an example of "getting in your face," and Inoli's Cain-like aggression supports Diane's interpretation.

By now we've implanted an image of Inoli in the reader's mind as one bad ass Cain.  So now its time to jerk the chain on the black and white imagery we've recently been criticizing and fill in the finer shades of gray.

If John Steinbeck didn't come right out and say as much in his many letter about his work, He strongly implies that he finds the morally challenged "Cains" of this world much more interesting than the pure "Abels".  After all the story of Cain and Abel is really much more about Cain, his choices, actions and their consequences that it is about the apparently righteous Abel.  Cain is subject, Abel is object.

And so it sometimes seems with Inoli and Bhalu.  Despite Inoli's runtish disfigurement and awkwardness (or perhaps because of it), Inoli displays some remarkably endearing qualities.  Every once in a while he puts the cutest little hop of his left rear leg into his gait.  To watch him display his frustration by "killing" a towel as he shakes it back and forth to "break its neck" is pure mirth.  When he rolls on his back, rubbing an itch in his coarse coat, he closes his eyes and his tongue lolls out of a wide open grin, giving one the impression he is experiencing a great sensual joy.

Inoli gives and receives physical affection in quantities greater than any dog we have ever met.  He loves to walk between our knees, squeezing between them or leaning hard against one and then stretch his hind legs so his stomach almost touches the ground, while we massage his hip joints.

Much to Diane's horror, Jim lets Inoli lick his face.  Inoli doesn't just give the customary two licks.  He licks your whole face including ears and forehead.  Diane threatens to stop kissing Jim if he continues this practice, but Jim has never learned how to say no to a dog, once he has said yes.

Well as we look back on this essay, it appears that Inoli has gotten a lot of ink, and perhaps like Steinbeck, we are more drawn to the "Cains" of this world.  But the Cain/Abel dichotomy is a fiction, so know that we love Bhalu for his boundless energy and his "dog-like"   loyalty.  Perhaps we should invoke the words of Chuck Hunter, Jim's dad, when he wisely said, "I love all my children equally, but differently."