"Holly wins the show"

by Janet F.

We have a Hamadryas baboon named Holly. Holly travels to many places with us such as schools & parades, or events such as Easter egg hunts or to visit Santa. Of course Holly had to pull off Santa's beard, but that's another story. We've also attended many fairs. 
While at one county fair, my human daughter was showing poultry in a poultry show. While there was a break in-between exhibits, my daughter thought that she had enough time to go to get some watermelon to eat, & of course she didn't make it back in time for the next exhibit, so Holly the baboon came to the rescue & filled in for her. Holly handed the judge the chicken to inspect, then the judge handed it back to Holly, & he went right on down the line of exhibitor's. My daughter had returned before the judge had made his final decision, & my daughter & Holly's chicken won first place. The judges reason was, that any chicken who will let a monkey show it & remain calm deserved to win, & no one argued with that. 

Holly plays a trick...

It's been a long standing joke around my house about my technical knowledge, or lack there of. But I usually can manage to operate the vacuum cleaner. So I thought. Well, the beast roaring thru the house usually doesn't upset too many of the critters. Charlie the prairie dog, if he moves at all just covers his head with his towel, leaving his lower half exposed. Out of sight, out of mind is his motto. The cats just perch up high & watch the vacuum go by. Holly the baboon, can push the vacuum on her own when she's out of her cage, & if the thing gives her any problems, then she just smacks it, & it straightens right up.
Well, while I was vacuuming the other day, I decided to use the hose around Holly's cage. But it quit running, so I checked the wall socket & it was plugged in. I then turned it back on & it ran again, so I picked up the hose to resume my task, but the vacuum went out again. So I had my ex-husband look at it to see if it might be plugged. He changed the bag & found no plug, so I'm thinking, great must be a short somewhere. Well, I again turned it back on, & since it was running, I grabbed the hose, to quickly get the job done, but of course the vacuum quit again. My ex-husband still standing by the door began to laugh as he said that he could see what the problem was...Holly was reaching through her cage bars & shutting the vacuum off every time I had turned away. Holly then began to laugh too.