A Lab is a Wonderful Thing!

Most, if not all, of you know that I have three dogs. And I love each one of them in very different ways. That's because each of them is a unique individual. Not that this is news to anybody who has ever had dogs. Every dog I've had in my life has been special in some way.

And that big guy in the photo with me is Coop, the newest canine addition to the family. Yes, he's a yellow lab. Or mostly so, at any rate. Except that his retrieving gene is totally defective.

I used to think that Labrador Retrievers just had good PR. No dog, I thought, could ever live up to all the hype you hear about labs. WRONG!! Coop is an amazing dog. He's silly and he's playful, but he can be incredibly serious if he perceives something is wrong. He's an amazing judge of character. I'll take his opinion of someone I've just met before I'll take my own. He knows. Somehow, he just knows. Like the time he walked right up to this kid on the rail trail. The young fellow was as Goth as they come. The black eye liner and nail polish. The spiked hair. The clothes. And he was just standing looking out from one of the bridges on the trail. Coop walked up to him and laid his big head against him. I was quite surprised. This was pretty early after I'd gotten him, and he'd never done anything like that before. This kid turned around, knelt down, cupped his hands under Coop's head, and then just melted into him. Coop just sat very quietly with his head resting on the boy's shoulder. When the young man looked up, there were tears running down his face. Then he said, "This is sure a nice dog you have." I asked him if he was OK. He gave me a little smile and said, "I am now. Thanks." Then he got up and walked away. I have no idea what was troubling him that day, and I would have walked right on by him, but Coop sensed someone who needed his help and he gave it.

Coop is very intelligent. Most evenings, I watch TV in my bedroom. And Coop knows its OK for him to come up on my bed and stretch out while we watch. But after the dogs have gone out for the last time, as we're walking back into the bedroom I always say to him, "Time for you to go to your own bed." And by golly, he walks right over and hops up onto his own bed for the night. I didn't teach him that. He simply understood it the first time I ever said it. Try to tell my other dogs that and they just totally ignore me and jump onto my bed anyway. But not Coop.

And daggone, but he is a handsome dog!

But he has this other sort of weird characteristic. He will suddenly select some object and become very attached to it. Like a kid with a security blanket. This weekend, I was cleaning out my walk-in closet. While I was working on organizing some yarn, he walked into the closet and came out with a sweat shirt. It was an inexpensive one I had bought over a year ago when I told myself I was going to start working out again at the WVU Recreation Center (oh yeah, like I kept THAT resolution). But I didn't go, and so the sweat shirt had remained all rolled up with a paper wrapper around its middle, just as it was when I bought it.

Coop walked all over the house carrying that thing in his mouth. I knew I could make him give it up if I really wanted to, but somehow I just didn't have the heart. Sometimes he would lie down and cuddle it between his legs; other times, he would use it as a pillow. He would get into one of his silly moods and start flinging it all over the place.

It finally popped out of its wrapper and then he and JD had a big tug of war with it. So now there are rips and bite marks all over it. And Coop is still dragging it around with him and occasionally flinging it over his shoulder.

So who's in the dog pile today for turning a perfectly good, new, unused sweat shirt into a dog toy? Me, I suppose. But sometimes, you just have to say, "Oh what the heck" and enjoy the moment rather than be serious and rational. Especially when you look into those big brown eyes and know you've made a lab happy. There's really no better feeling in the whole world!