Happy Birthday Tegan

I've written about my Tegan - yellow English Labrador - before, but this week is her 5th birthday and for a dog, it's a milestone!  We are so bonded, especially since we've moved to this condo and it's just the two of us living together.  She absolutely LOVES having company, especially the family and certain friends she's met here and her tail never stops wagging.

I thought I'd tell you about two incidents that have happened to her within the last two weeks.  First, she nearly drowned in the river when she leapt in and grabbed a small buoy to bring back to shore.  However, she couldn't make it for two reasons:  first, the buoy was attached to a rope that was itself attached to a pipeline at the bottom of the river and wouldn't move.  It was small enough for her to hold onto with her mouth but she - being a retriever - wanted to bring it ashore.  The second reason was that the tide kept pulling her away from where we were screaming at her to come! come! come! And of course, being just a dog, didn't have the brains to let go of the buoy!  A fisherman and his wife were on their boat and saw what was happening and came running out with a long stainless steel fishing stick of some kind with a barb on the end.  The fisherman managed to hook it onto her collar and jerked it so she dropped the buoy and he pulled her in.  Whew!  I was ready to throw off my coat and boots to go in after her, but thankfully, she was rescued.  She knew something was wrong because as you can see in the photo below, she was scared and couldn't even look me in the eyes.

The second incident was a happy one when I decided to take her to a new dog park about a half hour away from home.  We were having a glorious walk in the woods and she was so happy to run around free and sniff every tree, bush, and leaf!  I spotted a couple of yellow English Labs ahead of us so scurried to catch up to them.  Of course Tegan beat me there, but the ladies were waiting to ask me where she had come from (breeder).  It turned out they ALL - all three of the dogs - were from the same breeder - the male was 7 years old, the female 6 and Tegan is turning 5 on Friday.  They may even have had the same mother and father! At the very least, they are all cousins and maybe even actual brothers and sisters (but not from the same litter). What a fantastic meeting - we chatted and continued to walk together for quite a ways until I lost track of them when I was chatting with someone else on the trail.  Here are some photos of the 3 dogs.

Tegan is the smallest one with her pink tongue hanging out.  And in the next photo, she's the one sitting prettily saying, Please.

 So - one scary incident and one very happy incident - all within a few weeks of each other.  Tegan is still my love bunny and even at 65 pounds, she loves to jump up on my lap (when permission is granted) and snuggle in with me on my big leather recliner.  We love going on our daily walks, weather permitting, and visiting friends and family whenever we can.  When I have to go out to work, she settles nicely in her very own lazy-boy (my late mother wouldn't mind her using it) and has a nap until I come home to feed us both our dinners.

Here she is at just under 3 months old

Here she is on her favourite trail now telling me to hurry up.

HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY, TEGAN