Monday, December 8, 2008

Our Girl Harley

In the fall of 2003, I began the search for our next australian shepherd puppy. It had been a year since we lost Freckles and it felt as though the time was right. Around the middle of December, I saw an ad for a litter of aussies and called to make an appointment to see them. Jessy, my daughter, and I rode out to see the pups with the intention of puchasing one as a Christmas present for Johnny since Freckles had been "his" dog. It didn't take but a second for one little girl in particular to single me out: a little blue merle fuzzball with one brown eye and one blue/brown marbled eye! I sat with the litter for a couple of hours trying to engage one, then another, but the little merle girl was persistent, "pick me!"! So I did! I took her home and presented her to Johnny for Christmas. He was so surprised! And surprising him is no easy feat!

After the first of the year Johnny asked me to take her to obedience training class. I was hesitant; I was afraid she would bond more with me and I had bought her for Johnny. However, our business was booming and he couldn't make every class, so I agreed to take her. She just loved going to class and quickly became the star pupil! She was always the demo dog for her group and you could tell she just ate that up! And within just a couple of weeks, she was my dog! We were, and continue to be, inseperable.

Harley is without exception the most intelligent dog I have ever had the pleasure of spending time with. Now I know I'm prejudiced, but she really is sooo smart! She progressed rapidly through the series of puppy classes, and by seven months old I knew she needed something else; I just didn't know what. Our puppy instructor, James, suggested agility and gave us a name to contact, Nancy Walker. Little did I know how this would forever change my life.

I finally managed to contact Nancy and found out she ran an agility training group called Leaps and Bounds. We showed up for our first class and I was overwhelmed! A class for "excellent" dogs was being held and man were they good! And talk about excited....Harley was about "out of her mind" wanting to get out there with them! I never even knew a sport like this existed. We started lessons that day and haven't looked back!

In 2004, we moved from subdivision living to a small home on seven acres in Lebanon, Tennessee. Harley was in dog heaven! Plenty of room to run, play and explore! Only one thing was missing.....a playmate. In the fall of 2005, I started looking for our next aussie puppy!

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