Top Dog
Once again, and for the 18th consecutive year, the Labrador Retriever is America’s Top Dog.
I am not surprised. Zeus OS, pictured above on the wintry shores of a nearby wilderness pond – Runaround Pond, is my fourth lab.
I’ve run the gamut of sourcing my labs. The first, a black lab named Donovan de Donar, is a pet store dog from Tucson, Arizona. His companion, Chani Frontier Thunder – a chocolate lab was a newspaper dog from a backyard breeder, is from Scotts Bluff, Nebraska. The years go by. Chani left us before her time. Donovan lived a full life in Arizona, Wyoming, Maine, North Dakota and Alabama. After sixteen years, his time came.
My third lab, Thor Tres Thunder – a yellow lab was also a newspaper dog coming from a backyard breeder in Auburn, Alabama. Tragically and all too suddenly, he went well before his time, leaving a wound on my soul that may heal someday. After looking back at his lineage, the lack of breeding diversity worked too hard against him. An avoidable genetic defect doomed him. Healing time passed.
Zeus Ocean Storm came into my life two years ago. He is basically a Christmas puppy, as was Thor, but came from a local kennel with a superb reputation. (The Christmas timing was incidental, never deliberate.) The kennel was found through research and word of mouth. The breeder took the time in his early formative weeks to do the things that need to be done to set the dog right into this world. His lineage is deliberate. Noise doesn’t bother him, whether it be the vacuum cleaner – he runs to it to be vacuumed, thunder, or my wood shop power tools. Right now, as with every early morning that I do not have to scurry to work, he is curled up in reading recliner. Thor shared the same spot. Zeus OS is my Top Shelf Dog.
I will never go back to backyard breeders. On the way to Zeus we visited more than several kennels in the region. There is a difference.
Laurie, over at Punk Rock HR, wrote against backyard breeders. Her words, as always, are worthy.
What a lovely dog! My two black labs are special, too. One was from a breeder (in Ireland) and the other a “mostly lab” w/o papers from an idiot on Craig’s List. I love ‘em both, and cannot imagine life without a Labrador.
twobarkingdogs said this on January 25, 2009 at 6:35 pm