ABC Wednesday, H is for Holle

Holle is our labrador retriever (one of three). Our first black lab was Cosy, the loveliest dog anyone could ever wish for. When Cosy was about two years old, another black labradorpup arrived in our family. We called her Phoebe. Cosy and Phoebe were inseparable from the start. Sadly Cosy died of cancer just before her 6th birthday. We (hubs, me and Phoebe) were inconsolable and hubs and I decided that we wanted to fill the very big gap that Cosy left with a new labradorpup. So Holle arrived. Holle was a very different dog in her behaviour. I used to do hunting training with Cosy (we were quite good at that actually) and hubs trained with Phoebe. We started training both dogs from when they were about 14 weeks old. So we knew a little bit about bringing up a pup. You would think. But Holle! Holle was a totally different matter. A very uncontrollable little black monster. Even our trainer (who is one of those people that can take a dog's lead and the dog immediately surrenders to 'the power of the great packleader', a natural doghandler) could NOT handle our Holle. She just ignored him. He was stunned. It was a slight comfort for us. We didn't do everything wrong then, Holle just had a mind of her own. The training was held in a field surrounded by woods, next to a small fishing lake and most exercises were done off lead. Well.....as soon as we took the lead off Holle she would disappear. Usually to take a swim in the lake. We were always left until last to do an exercise. So that everybody else could go and drink some tea or coffee while I was out looking for Holle. What a dog! She built quite a reputation for us. Cosy and I used to have a reputation too. But a good one. If we were competing in a hunting competition somewhere in the Netherlands, sometimes total strangers would come up to me and say: "Ah, so thát's Cosy! What a wonderful dog." I mean, thát is special isn't it? But Holle had a different reputation. Not that she wasn't a kind and happy dog, just sort of a loose canon. Until I had a bright idea. What if we would use a collar (in hunting 'we' don't use a collar, because if the dog has to search in the woods, a collar can get caught in some branches and a dog can choke itself), take the lead off, but attach a very long line. So that if Holle would run off, I could stand on the line and she wouldn't get very far. And that turned everything around. She began to understand that partytime was over and that it was actually quite fun to do something good and get a reward. Yippee! She is a very well behaved dog now. Most of the time. Sometimes she gets into Holle-mode again, but I can see in her eyes that she's making plans of her own and I can warn her by saying: "Holle! Watch it!" And then she goes back to her well-behaved-mode. She and I are best friends now. I never thought that would happen. It's hard to take a good picture of her when I'm alone with her, because she doesn't leave my side and always looks up to me like this. And if I go down on my knees, she often tries to eat the camera. And if I tell her to stay somewhere so that I can get some distance between us, her ears drop and she gets a very sad look on her face. That's our Holle! ABC Wednesday is a fun meme, hosted by Mrs. Nesbitt. Take a look here to see the other H-posts of this week. Or post your own!