A six-year-old Labrador Retriever from Canandaigua, New York recently set a new world record befitting his playful personality – most tennis balls held in a dog’s mouth at once.

Finley the dog loves tennis balls so much that he has developed a very special skill – picking up and holding up to six balls in his mouth, without any assistance from a human. His owners, the Molloy family, first noticed the pooch’s talent when he was two years old. Back then, he could fit up to four tennis balls in his mouth at once, but before they knew it, Finley started showing up with five balls between his teeth, and then finally with six, which stretched his cheeks to the extreme.

Photo: @finnyboymolloy/Instagram

Erin Molloy, who brought Finley to the family home when he was only ten-weeks-old, says that he gets really excited when someone throws six tennis balls to him. He picks up the first three or four with ease, using only his mouth, and then spends a while using his paws to fit the last balls between his teeth. Sometimes he has just a fang stuck in some of the balls to keep them from falling out, and his cheeks are stretched out in what looks like an excited smile. He’s clearly proud of his achievement every time he manages to stick all six balls in his mouth, as he always wags his tail vigorously.

Finley has been pulling off his impressive tennis ball trick for a while, but his human family only learned that it was a world record after doing some research online. About a year ago, Erin read that in 2003 a golden retriever from Texas set the record with five tennis balls, so Finley had him beat.

For the past year or so, Erin Molloy has been in touch with Guinness Records to have Finley’s record acknowledged. It’s been an arduous process, as the organization requires video submissions, witness statements and repeated attempts, but the pooch’s owners are confident that his achievements will soon be formally recognized.

In the meantime, Finley the lab is practicing his impressive trick and enjoying his online fame. Erin set up an Instagram account for him in 2018, and so far he has amassed a following of over 33,000 people, from all over the world.

Apparently, people will sometimes leave comments on Instagram accusing Erin and her parents of forcing Finley to perform the tennis ball trick for fame, but they always try to respond and let people know that it’s just something that their dog loves to do.

via USA Today