Christmas Eve "Holly" AAD
Dec. 24, 1991-Feb.3, 1999

 

When Holly was about 7 months old, I got a flyer about an agility fun match for beginners that was being held right down the street. I had never even heard of agility, but it sounded like fun and so we went. Holly learned all of the obsticals in that one day.  It was obvious that she was enjoying herself and I loved the teamwork that we started that day.

 

There are many magic moments forever engraved in my memory. During her first USDAA leg, it was raining and her right feet slipped off the teeter. The judge, Elizabeth Blanchard, and I just held our breaths, then Holly lifted both of her right feet back on to the teeter and we went on to complete our qualifing run.

 

Her first run in Lexington was one of the few courses that I could watch her run while I pivioted.
But near the end of the run she looked at me instead of where she was running and ran right over the table. Realizing what happened, she came back immediately and performed the table. We came in fourth, with the first three dogs qualifying, exactly 10 seconds faster than the first place dog.  Snooker was the next event for us, and we got first beating the next three dogs by 2 points with plenty of time to spare.

 

One of her last events was an Advanced Jumpers.  Even though we couldn't follow our plan, she had a clean run of 27.75 seconds in a course time of 40 seconds for the only qualifing score.  The judge, Laura Yarborough, who had seen her first USDAA runs asked if she had gotten faster.  I replied,
"No, she has always been this fast!"  Laura said, "I remembered that she was fast, but not this fast!"

 

Someday when we cross the rainbow bridge together, I won't mind a bit if she misses the contact zone on the other side.

Phil