Sunday, May 15, 2011

Senior Cairns are Special - Just ask Holly's adoptive mom!

Written by Holly's adoptive Mom

Holly likes her ball

our pretty girl

I love to play!

Holly is one of our 5 Cairns. She started out as a foster that we picked up when we drove to the Texas CRAP (Cairn Rescue Annual Party), and stayed with us for 6 months, before we adopted her. Holly, fka Neosho, was a part of the Kansas Confiscation Group that Kaaren J. helped to get into CP. I believe this mill had been shut down by the State of KS (Kaaren correct me if I am wrong!) and they seized all of the breeding stock. CP had been contacted to take the Cairns. I believe Holly was one of 3 that Kaaren fostered and she adopted the other female.

I really wasn't looking for a 4th Cairn, but one weekend, when my parents were visiting, they asked why we would uproot her, again, after everything she endured. Holly is a mess, physically, and I knew she would have limitations, such as never being able to do stairs, and she is a over-sized Cairn, so it would be difficult for someone to carry her up and down stairs. In fact, I was a matchmaker at the time I was fostering Holly, and Susan C. had told me she was interested in Holly. I talked her out of it, because they have stairs and she weighs about 23 lbs. Thankfully, I quickly matched her with Sunny/Hannah! When I took Holly to my vet, while fostering her, she was diagnosed with LeggsPerthe Disease and luxating patellas. It was decided to wait on surgery, because she wasn't limping or skipping in her gait. Well, it's now about 5 years later and here is Holly playing in our yard this evening with McDuffy (6 yrs. her junior) and her favorite ball. It is thought that she is about 12-13 y.o., but we really don't have a clue. As you can see, Holly doesn't think she has any limitations.

I've had people comment about how ugly she is, well, it was a teacher a worked with, when I was fostering Holly at the time. Of course, I nailed her and told her that Holly looks the way she does, because of humans! You will notice that she has a crooked ear, missing many teeth, is sway-backed, very long body, and her belly pretty much touches the ground. I see the most gorgeous round, brown eyes; an amazing double coat that grows out every 2 weeks (I just stripped her earlier this week!), and a gentle soul who will walk over to you and sit patiently in front of you, waiting for a pet. (She did this a lot at the Cactus Cairn Round-Up to Florence's friend Sue.)

Oh, and I forgot to mention, she is a champion marker! You just can't get mad at her when she marks, because she looks up at you with a little smile on her face, like she did something good. She really doesn't have a clue that she is doing anything wrong. She used to wear a panty in the house all of the time, but now she has graduated to just wearing one when we leave the house. If she didn't wear one, then there would be 10-15 half-dollar sized pee spots when we got back home.

If you look at her ears, it looks like an "L", so I always tell her to "Give me an L for love!" Of course, she obliges. :)

So, just like Debra's Bianca, Holly is also a special CP senior alumni.

Please consider making an older cairn part of your 'furmily'. Please click here to learn more about our available cairns.


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