Late that night, after the shelters were closed a neighbor told us she saw the animal control vehicle pick up Holly. We called all the nearby shelters over and over again in case she had been picked up by animal control but they reported not having a black and white dog with a red collar. We looked for hours and hours and drove around the neighborhood hanging up missing signs. On one memorable occasion, Holly vanished and we couldn't find her. That was relatively successful in that home. We tried many things but eventually poured concrete directly under the fence line.

She had a great technique that involved rolling onto her back and getting her front paws under the fence and then using the front legs to pull/slide the rest of the body through on her back. She spent her outside time staring at the neighbor's dogs through the fence and digging her way under the fence. She didn't understand boundaries and felt our very generous backyard in Provo just wasn't big enough. Holly was a frequent comforter when Simon was in pain. In fact, despite our fears that she might get aggressive she was known to circle around Simon when visitors came over in a manner to suggest she thought she needed to protect him.Īnd Simon loves Holly. She was always a very tolerant dog with our children. When Simon was born in late 2007 he was immediately drawn to Holly. Her fear of strangers didn't apply to our children. Holly could barely move but she managed to drag herself across the floor to bite our friend.įrom that point forward she couldn't be easily trusted with strangers and her fear of Vets and animal hospitals meant being muzzled for every vet visit for the rest of her life. I'll never forget an evening soon after Holly had returned from the hospital when we needed to leave and recruited a friend to come to stay at the house with recovering Holly. Sadly this experience didn't help Holly's social skills.

We didn't realize just how many years we were buying for Holly. At the time it was all we could do to spare the $1000+ to make it happen but we figured she was young and the investment would be good. Patiently we scooped her up and drove her to a late-night vet hospital where she underwent surgery to place a metal plate in her hip. The truck's presence scared Holly and in panic, she ran toward the truck and was run over by the rear wheel. We were putting up Christmas lights when a neighbor drove by in his truck. In December 2006, I was experimenting with allowing Holly to be off the leash with me in the front yard. The car ride home after picking Holly up at the rescue shelterĭespite her rocky first years, she seemed sweet to us, and almost exactly 13 months after our marriage, we decided we were ready for the stewardship of another living thing.

Pickup Lines by Holly Jacobs