Casey

The Black Lab, America’s family dog. There are two types of Labrador retrievers: English and American. The former are beautiful show dogs with average energy and a stockier build. The American black lab is pure bred lunatic. This is the story of Casey – the lunatic.

Casey came home, a 10-week-old puppy, as a surprise. The best surprise a family can get, right? Absolutely, unless your 3^rd child was born just weeks earlier. I was young but old enough to remember the look on mom’s face when my old man walked in the door with a little black ball of fluff. She had no idea what we were in for.  

I learned out to hunt over him and he taught me what a good hunting dog was. At 85lbs of unneutered nose and muscle, Casey would chase down a pheasant 3 fields over, bust through ice to retrieve ducks, and never missed sniffing out a grouse. He had a top tier nose and hunting instinct short of no other dog. After 4 labs I’ve learned that the crazier they are, the better hunting dogs they are. He was a machine in the field.

Being a machine in the field translates to a chaotic family life. Bring your pet to school day was peak performance for our loving family companion. There were dogs, cats, birds and even a horse that showed up to our small middle school to receive a blessing from the school priest. Everyone toted their pet’s best appearance and behavior. As the horse trotted up to receive his blessing, Casey decided that meeting this horse was a life-or-death endeavor. With his leash wrapped around my mom’s hand, he dragged her a good 20ft before he came loose, knocking down 7 rows of folding chairs - people included. He evaded capture for a good 5 minutes, bounding around the outside area playing chicken with anyone in pursuit. Finally, he was corralled by 4 dads and immediately escorted from the premises. The priest made a joke about needing an exorcism and he may not have been wrong.

Casey stories are endless. He’s eaten a rock the size of a golf ball (needing surgical removal), chewed up the corner of every wall in the house, once ran away for 3 days and came home with a 4-inch gash in his right hip – likely a coyote fight. Even his stomach was made of steel considering he'd been known to eat a full chocolate sheet cake. The dog had a drive that just didn’t stop.

Casey was a ladies’ man. With a complete disregard for our electric fence, if a neighbor’s dog was in heat, we got a call that Casey was at their back door. He would run away at will and upon return sit just outside the electric fence and bark, avoiding the shock on his way back in.

A little craziness can be spun into a good thing. A paternity lawsuit cannot. Casey’s lover of choice was a beautiful 150lb St. Bernard that lived down the road. He knew how to pick ‘em. We received regular calls that Casey had wandered over and was hanging out with Ginger. One morning we got a call from them and thinking Casey had bolted, my mom grabbed her keys and headed to the car. The keys hit the floor:

“He did WHAT?!”

After she calmed down, we discovered that Casey had impregnated his long-time lover and was due to be a father in a few weeks. We held out hope that another neighborhood dog had had his way with sweet Ginger but one look at that puppy’s big block head and there was no mistaking it. Casey was a dad. Luckily it was a litter of one and our neighbors were very cool about it. Snap was her name – yes, ginger snap – and thankfully she inherited her mother’s composure.  

That was Casey - I miss that dog.