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Finley The Golden Retriever Sets World Record For Most Tennis Balls In Mouth

Finley The Golden Retriever Sets World Record For Most Tennis Balls In Mouth

But it's proving tough to enter the dog into the Guinness Book of Records.

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

A beautiful golden retriever named Finley has set a world record for fitting the most amount of tennis balls in its mouth.

The six-year-old dog from Ontario County, New York, has managed to put a whopping six balls inside its mouth at one time, beating the previous Guinness World Record holder of five.

That honour has been held by a Texas golden retriever named Augie since 2003 and Finley's owners, Cheri and Rob Molloy are now asking the record keepers to update their books.

According to the New York Post, the Molloy's say the mountain of paperwork required to submit a Guinness World Record is keeping them from clinching the top spot.

finnyboymolloy/Instagram

But they are keen to eventually submit Finley for consideration.

Until then, the golden retriever will continue to enjoy being treated like royalty by Cheri and Rob and laps up his 28,000 followers on Instagram.

His owners reckon the dog discovered he had a talent for hoarding tennis balls when he was about two years old. Finley ran up to them with a whopping four balls stuff inside his gob and that's when Cheri and Rob knew they had a special animal in their midst.

"The joy he brings to us is one thing," Cheri Molloy told the Democrat and Chronicle. "But he brings joy to people all over the world."

finnyboymolloy/Instagram

She added that Finley's version of fun is, obviously, go fetch. While the first few balls are easily picked up, he slows down to a crawl to grab the fifth and sixth balls.

But when there's no one there to throw half a dozen tennis balls at him, he apparently likes to lie on his back and hold a ball above him with his two paws and then drop it into his mouth.

Now that is truly beautiful.

That is a pretty impressive feat for an animal, but one woman has shown the world what you can do when you train an animal properly.

Owner and speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger started using a soundboard on Stella, her Catahoula/Blue Heeler mix, when the dog was just eight weeks old.

Now Stella is 18 months old and she can say 29 words and even string them in a sentence.

Speaking to PEOPLE, Hunger said: "I'm in constant amazement and shock. Every day she says something cooler than she said the day before.

"The way she uses words to communicate and the words she's combining is really similar to a 2-year-old child. I think how important dogs are to their humans. I just imagine how much deeper the bond will be."

Unsurprisingly, the dog's favourite word is 'walk', followed closely by 'beach'.

Featured Image Credit: finnyboymolloy/Instagram

Topics: News, Animals