Buddy Goes for the Ball, His Master Takes a Fall

Former President Clinton took a tumble Friday on the driveway in front of his home here when his dog, Buddy, tripped him up during a game of fetch.

“You guys got a good shot,” Clinton said to a few reporters and photographers. “That’s the first time he’s knocked me down in all the time we’ve been together.”

The exuberant chocolate Labrador was chasing and retrieving a green tennis ball as Clinton threw it down Old House Lane in Chappaqua.

At one point, Buddy, a parked security van and the former president’s legs converged and Clinton fell on his rear end.

A security guard quickly helped him up. Clinton, who had been out of office six days, was apparently unhurt. He seemed to comfort the dog, then continued the game of fetch with Buddy.

Clinton emerged from his home in the cold afternoon wearing a New York Stock Exchange jacket. He had been inside all day before coming out to play with his dog.

He said he’d been “working on the house . . . trying to get everything up. We have got a lot of work to do.”

Both before and after the fall, he chatted with neighbors about Buddy and other neighborhood dogs. He told neighbors he had to get back inside “or Hillary will think I’ve disappeared.”

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who was also at the house, did not come outside.