We have always had terriers.

Airedales, Wire Fox and even a Welsh. Somehow we always comeback to the king of the terriers.  We knew last summer our magnificent ATRA Airedale Hank was in decline after 12 amazing years (please see our rainbow article just submitted). 

DeAnn and I agreed we had one more “ Dale” in us and reached out to  ATRA to find a 2yr old, we’ll behaved, housebroken, trained female… somehow we ended up driving to Burnsville, MN to play with two six month old females last summer.  Of course, they were perfect;  rambunctious, energized, over toothed young predators with zero training or good manners. We came home with “ Simone” because she had a white star on her chest, like our Hank.

She came into a home with an elderly male Airedale who slept most of the time & did not like being disturbed and a nine yr old Irish Terrier who is a certified Therapy Dog and has achieved the AKC Master of Agility title.  The Irish does not like any other dog on the planet besides Hank. The pecking order was established in seconds of course (no fatalities).

I have every intention of training this new Dale to follow in her siblings footsteps. We changed her name to Arlie and the training began. 

Arlie has completed the following AKC six week classes; Beginning Obedience, Intermediate Obedience, Canine Good Citizenship and Advanced Canine Good Citizenship.  On March 20th, she successfully passed the very intense Therapy Dog International test earning her TDI title.  Her sister ( Murphy is the Irish Terrier) and I provide therapy to MercyOne and Veterans Hospital on a weekly basis.

Arlie is in her sixth week of introductory Agility training ( off leash) and will complete AKC Urban Good Citizenship and Advanced Obedience this summer.  My hope is she can compete in both Agility and Rally trials by fall as well as provide therapy to those in need.

Arlie is a brilliant young Dale who likes to be challenged and busy all the time.  Did I mentioned she is a normal terrier who likes to dig holes in our fenced in yard, seek out, catch and destroy any life form that runs, flys or crawls? In seconds she can recon our entire home for any available slipper, shoe, flip flop, glove or paper product to quickly take the item into a vacant room for the dissection process.  She got a hold of a highlighter(orange) once, crushed it on a light colored bedspread and proceeded to create a flowing design on the bed and her beard. She latched onto a prescription once, container might be child resistant but it stand a chance with a Dale. Ate all but to pills(had to call the Pet Poison Center on that one; didn’t hurt her a bit). DeAnn lovers to knit, Arlie loves her yarn!  We have a hot tub and Arlie decided the $900 lid was a chew toy; looks a little frayed now…her most recent fun time event was discovering a feather pillow.  She had a party ripping and shaking it apart and making it snow all by herself! 

She loves her daily long walks, going to parks, car rides and camping.

She is a wonderful, loving, normal Dale! Thank you again ATRA!

Steve and DeAnn Howard