We wanted to offer our contribution to your “success” page with our story of how Hollywood (formerly Daisy) came to be a member of our family.
With our other dog, Hobbes getting older and recently retired from 11 years of Flyball, we wanted to add a new puppy to our family in the hopes that Hobbes would still be agile and patient enough to help us guide her. We found Daisy on Petfinder.com and the obvious similarity to Hobbes’ as a puppy was unmistakable. A flurry of emails, an application and home check; and “Hollywood” came home. She was renamed in honour of my recent return from living in California. Holly seemed a stronger name for a Flyball recall than Gary running around calling “Daaaaaiiiisy”.
Holly has been an absolute joy and a testament to her Australian Shepherd (cross) breed. Despite her rougher start in life, she settled in nicely with the other resident fur-kids. Her “nipping” was a non-issue (the reason she was abandoned initially), we kept her preoccupied with chew toys, ice cubes and tons of attention. Hobbes taught her the house rules and tolerated her puppy-playfulness with grace & semi-patience. Casper (the resident tuxedo cat) has lost weight (he needed it) from all the “herding” up & down the stairs, compliments of Holly any time Casper is below waist level. I never thought I’d see Casper playing with a dog (he had never met a dog before we moved in with Gary & Hobbes)… as you can see in the pictures, them sitting side-by-side at the back door was a treasured sight. Sadly we lost our other tuxedo cat, Phantom on May 26th, 2005…one day before Holly’s first birthday (we chose May 27th as her birthday)…because of our grief, we never did honour “her day” as we should have. We’ll try to make up for it this year on her second birthday.
Holly has now achieved Flyball Dog Excellence title (over 100 points), having completed her first three Flyball tournaments in 2006. She’s not as fast (yet) as she will be, we’re working on her confidence…she’s such a smart and logical little Aussie, she can’t quite grasp why she has to go All the way down to the box to get a ball when the dog going by her has a perfectly good one that she can play with! (http://www.flyballdogs.com). When the tournaments are over, you can usually find Holly splayed out on the dog pillow, all four feet in the air and happy as a clam to be home OR in the backyard on lookout patrol for squirrels/bunnies/birds. (See pics for proof). We couldn’t have been more blessed to have Holly come to us and we thank Speaking of Dogs every day for her!
Julie & Gary & Hobbes & Holly & Casper & Phantom-in-spirit
