Stick
Whenever a ball wasn't available a stick would do. Especially while on a hike. While we lived in Germany we could be found in the forest on a trail at least 4 days a week. Hershey loved it. One of our trails took us through the woods, around the neighborhood's medieval castle and up the hill to this fairly flat, treed area that had a few old rock foundations that you could tell were from the out buildings of the castle.
Here was Hershey's place for some after-hike stick games. She would find herself a nice sturdy piece of a branch. It had to be just right. No crumbly bark and not too rotten that it would fall apart after the first throw. Hershey had a very "firm" bite. This was very hard on most sticks. Sometimes the first catch would break it in two.
Playing stick on the flat became a routine.
We would round the bend and she would be off running to the tree where
she left the stick from before. She always knew where it was. We would
play for a while and then return the stick to its place. This would continue
day after day (sometimes even with a several day break between trips)
for weeks. The only thing that would change is if the stick finally broke
or someone else found it and didn't put it back. On those occasions she
would still run around trying to find it until we found another one.
