In praise of the old girl :)
I’ve been posting an awful lot on here about Faith recently, and I just wanted to say a few words about how awesome Holly is.
She has been part of our lives (and has pretty much had us to herself) for more than ten years now, and though part of the reason I wanted to bring Faith home was so that they could be company for each other, I knew that it would not be easy for her to adjust. And in less than two weeks she has gone from tolerating this new interloper to playing with her in a way I haven’t seen her do in many years. For example, the first few days if Faith jumped up on me to welcome me home Holly would jump up too and snap at Faith to make her back off, but now I just get knocked down by having two furry beasts jumping on me happily together.
Faith discovered many of the toys that Holly hasn’t played with for years, which of course meant that Holly had to take them away from her and hoard them (thankfully Faith has been very good about deferring to Holly anytime Holly wanted anything Faith had), but over time this has developed into an hilarious game of “hide the toy”- Holly hides them, then when she isn’t looking Faith sneaks in and takes them back out. And in the last day or two they have started actually playing chase around the apartment for an hour or so in the evening: tails-up-and-wagging, occasionally barking, chase. Some of the time Holly is chasing Faith, and some of the time Faith is chasing Holly 🙂
And one last observation… I’ve been letting Faith off leash a bit in the woods, and she’s getting better at paying attention, but it’s made me realize how totally rock-solid Holly is. I just don’t even think about it- all the times we’ve been walking around the woods, and sometimes I’m distracted with a camera, and now distracted by another dog, she is just there, right with me and never giving me cause for any worry.
I’m so happy they seem to be really getting along now, if Faith can learn a little of Holly’s awesome steadiness, and Holly can regain a little youthful playfulness by having Faith around to play with, I think they can make an amazing team 🙂