Dogs – In Love with Labs

Posted April 1st, 2007

My wife and I saw a bumper sticker the other day that made us both smile: “Try to be the person your dog thinks you are.” That’s pretty good advice.

As a kid, our family had beagles. One of them, named Buddy, would trot down the hill to where the school bus dropped my sister and me every afternoon.

His eager greeting and jaunty pace made the long trudge up the hill seem to go faster. Although I can’t remember teaching him the trick, whenever I said,  “Smile, Buddy,” he would cock his head and bare his teeth. This stunt especially delighted adults, one of whom, I’ve always suspected, stole Buddy. He took him when he went to Florida for the winter.

When I was in college, my family got a pair of golden retrievers, which they named Rusty and Dusty. It might be an unfair impression, since I was away from home much of the time, but those goldens constantly seemed to be getting into mischief. Rusty, the male, took great pride displaying his hunting trophies, often prancing proudly into the house with the bloody remains of a woodchuck or skunk. Dusty, meanwhile, had a fascination with barnyard scents and was in a state of total bliss when her coat was matted with fresh cow manure.

In the summer of 1972, just out of the Army, I was living in Anchorage, Alaska, taking classes at the university to earn a teaching certificate. My daily bicycle commute took me past the city’s animal shelter. One afternoon, I stopped for a look. I still remember my shock at the rows of cages of dogs, large and small, waiting to be adopted, or, sadly, euthanized. Most were eager for human contact, their tails wagging, eyes pleading. One exception was a small pile of black fur in a cage labeled simply, Black Lab.

“What’s wrong with this one?” I asked the attendant.

“Nothing. She’s exhausted. We’ve had her playing out on the lawn all morning.”

“Well, I’ll think it over and check back tomorrow,” I responded.

“It’ll be too late for her. She’s scheduled to be put down tonight.”

Within thirty minutes I had signed the adoption papers, paid the fees, bundled the sleepy puppy into my backpack and was peddling home. Rode became a wonderful companion and a valued family member, even though she caused me some embarrassment as a retriever.

As you can imagine, Alaskans take their hunting seriously. When one of my ski team buddies invited me to go duck hunting, I offered to bring Rode. I had been training her for months to retrieve with dummies and duck wings, and even added the distraction of a shotgun. I was pretty sure she was ready. We set out a few decoys in a small pond and waited. As soon as the ducks appeared overhead, we each got off a couple of shots and one bird tumbled into the water. Rode was tense and poised, but when I gave her the command  “Fetch,” she refused to budge. I coaxed, cajoled, commanded and threw sticks, but Rode sat tight. Finally, my buddy stripped down and dove into the frigid water to retrieve his own duck.

Klister was my next retriever and you couldn’t keep her out of the water. On a hot summer day, if anyone was headed to the pond for a swim, Klister made it a race to the water. She would run full tilt across the dock and launch herself, fully extended like an Olympic swimmer. Then, as long as anyone was in the water, Klister would happily paddle around, hour after hour.

Rosie is our third Lab, and she prefers her water frozen. The summer day we brought her home, she slipped off the dock. Although she was in the water for only a few sputtering seconds, I think the incident tempered her Lab’s instinctive love of swimming. But pond hockey and cross-country skiing, now those are sports she loves! She adds a wonderful element of unpredictability to a pond hockey game. Rosie bides her time until she sees an opening, sprints for the puck—claws scratching on the ice—then proudly retreats to a snow bank with her prize.

When skiing, Rosie will lope along easily on the flats and climbs, occasionally sniffing at deer tracks or plunging her head in the powder when she thinks she hears a mouse. But on the downhills it’s always a race. If she knows the trail, she’ll turn and wait to give the skiers a fair chance. Then it’s flat out full speed ahead for the pure pleasure of running fast through the snow.

Dogs have always been a part of my life, and now, I imagine I’ll always have a Lab. There’s something about them I find irresistible. Maybe it’s their adaptability to the cold weather, or maybe it’s their goofy playfulness. Whatever it is, they bring a lot of pleasure to my life, and I hope I do the same for them. My wife and I saw a bumper sticker the other day that made us both smile: “Try to be the person your dog thinks you are.” That’s pretty good advice.