It was our dogs third birthday the other day. Well we really don’t know when his actual birthday is so we just use the day we got him at the humane society as his birthday. All we know is that he was a stray picked up by animal control and brought to the humane society when he was roughly 6 months old.

He doesn’t like to talk about his past much, labs are like that, so I respect his privacy and figure he’ll tell me when he’s good and ready, things like that take time. Some night when he’s had one too many shots of Captain Labrador, he’s twenty-one now, he’ll lose his grip on that bitter ball of past resentments and it’ll all come out.

So what did we get Pre for his third birthday? We brought him home from the pound three years ago that should be enough I would think. That and two cans of dog food a day, all the water he can drink, a floor to sleep on, a yard to do his business in, and two kids that adore him. I think he’s done pretty well for himself.

I remember the day we got him. We went to the humane society just to look. Taking two kids to the humane society “just to look”…yeah I should have seen it coming. I really didn’t know if I wanted a dog, seemed like too much of a hassle, and I never really would describe myself as a dog person, but then I met Pre. I’m still not one of the “those” dog people, I’m a Pre person, he suits me.

Someone once told me that you don’t find a dog they find you and I can’t imagine our family without Pre now. I also can’t imagine what it would be like if the kids did everything they said they would do if we got a dog. Walk him, brush him, feed him, pick up after him, “Oh we’ll do all of that dad, every single day, and you won’t even have to tell us twelve times to do it.” Can’t imagine.

Awhile back the kids conspired with their mother to “suggest” we get another dog so Pre had someone to chit chat with about things us humans just don’t understand. I told them we could get another dog but we’d have to get rid of Pre first. We only have one dog bed, one dog dish, one leash, so it seems to me we can only have one dog. They retreated but I’m always on guard for another barrage or any side trips to the humane society “just to look.”

I was the one that wanted a dog least. Maybe that’s why he seems to have taken to me the most. I heard him explaining it to the neighbor’s dog, “The two kids and that lady were a pushover but it took a little work to soften up the balding one that blames all the farts on me.”

He softened me up more than I care to admit. Now if he’d only learn to make a pot a coffee in the morning and tell me when my clothes don’t match before I go to work.