35 Months Old!

Holly is 35 months old today, equivalent to a teen-ager!  This explains her love for her BFF (Keltie) and wanting her by her side 24/7.  These two are in their heaven when together with a simple rubber ball, a fallen tree branch or a weather beaten, frayed frisbee.  Any of these items are an easy two hours of entertainment, when they are together.   As hard as they play, they also rest – sometimes together on the couch, sometimes in their own separate spaces – but come time to wake up, the first thing to check out is where the other one is at.  Life is better with friends and Holly has struck gold!

Keltie is an amazing dog in her own right.  The other night DeeAnn came home from the Twin Ports Dog Training Annual Awards Party carting a huge trophy, fully engraved with her name on it.  Keltie had High Score for the year, a remarkable feat for a 2+ year old!  We are all so proud!

As Holly approaches being 3, I’m hoping Keltie will help train Holly on a Rally excercise!  Holly’s third Rally class has started.  She’s not crazy about it but does fairly well on most of the challenges.  She has the handicap of having me as her handler.  At class a couple weeks ago, I took her through the course this time using a toy as a motivator.  To better handle the toy, I draped the leash over my neck, seemingly a smart idea until I reached the jumps.  Holly, always reluctant to do the jump, went through the jump for the toy but my leash caught the jump’s support beam pulling the whole unit down with a crash, just behind Holly.  It was freak city for a few seconds.   And not surprisingly, Holly was not having anything to do with the jump on the second run through the course.  It was back to square one with jumps & Holly.   Her trauma did not diminish after a week’s time.  The following week, she was even more defiant.  She literally planted her front legs and leaned her rear end back, looking like a mule.  And me looking like a cowboy trying to get the mule across a raging river.  It was not back to square one, but instead back to negative three.

Plan now is to recruit Keltie as a confifdent supporter to help Holly with her fears.  If Keltie jumps the jumps, Holly likely will follow.  If done enough times, confidence will grow!  We hope.  No doubt, Keltie will be on board with it.  It’s what friends do!   Stay tuned!