The Canine Component: Dave and Clancy

There’s a lot of living going on outside on Owl Acres, but there’s also a lot of living going on inside the house. The principal actors, besides the humans, are two beautiful canines—Dave and Clancy. These two beings bring a verve and energy to our world that wouldn’t be here if we didn’t invite them in. All that dog hair wouldn’t be here either, but that’s another story.

Each of the dogs has his job to do, his role to fill in our household. And when I’m here without them, the house seems kind of empty.

Dave, my 63-pound yellow lab, is a highly trained guide for me. He was bred, born and raised in the arms of the Seeing Eye (seeingeye.org) and when he was ready, he was trained for his specific job. We met in February of 2022, and have developed a strong and very functional partnership. But Dave isn’t all work and no play. He loves to run like the wind in approved and safe settings like our fenced yard. He likes to flip, toss and catch things like the woven coasters on my coffee table. He gets the zoomies and races around the house, grabbing and flinging his toys and snatching popcorn out of the air. He puts himself to bed at night in his crate, and gets up way too early in the morning. And he is always hungry. Within an hour of feeding time, he will sit in front of me and just stare, complaining loudly that I’m too slow feeding him. And when I do feed him, it’s never enough. He wolfs it down in seconds, then scours the dish hoping he missed a molecule or two. Throughout the day while I’m working, he goes under my desk and curls up on his pad.

Dave loves to play in water. Leaping and bounding and splashing about, he is pure joy on the beach or in a creek or wading pool. He also loves to play with other dogs, enticing them with his play bow to romp and tumble. He grew up with another dog and a couple of cats, and it seemed to me that he needed a playmate, so a couple of years ago now, we got Clancy, a male golden retriever puppy. He was so cute! But those feet warned us he was going to be a big boy. And his tail was entirely too long for his body. He grew into those feet and that tail, though, and now at the age of two, he weighs 90 pounds and is perfectly proportioned—and just plain big.

Dave took to the puppy right away. He let Clancy cling to his neck and face, and as Clancy grew, they started wrestling and playing together. Dave seemed happier now that he had a playmate.

The retriever in Clancy is very strong. He loves to bring us things. He’ll grab the towel off the oven door or gloves off the table. If I drop something like the wool balls we use in the dryer, he is quick to retrieve it and present it to me with a little slobber added. So far though—knock on wood—he hasn’t taken any food off the table or counters. That’s in spite of the fact that he’s tall enough to rest his chin on the table and look things over.

(Note: Since I wrote this, Clancy has eaten an entire cheesecake that we left on the kitchen counter. Never say never!)

When we pick up the dog toys and put them in the basket to keep them out of the way of the vacuum cleaner, Clancy goes to the basket and rescues them, dropping them all on the floor around the basket after he’s made sure they’re all there. He loves to bring me a ball to throw, or a bone to admire. And both dogs lie at my feet all morning while I’m working.

So where did these beautiful creatures come from? Clancy came from a long line of purpose-bred golden retrievers. The history of the breed goes back to the mid-1800s.

 The first golden retrievers were bred by a British lord named Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks, AKA Lord Tweedmouth. The first recognized litter was born in 1868, the product of a tweedwater spaniel named Belle and a yellow, flat-coated retriever named Nous. Lord Tweedmouth’s goal was to breed a hunting dog that was intelligent, gentle, and good at swimming and retrieving. At first, the dogs were called yellow retrievers, but when they were entered in a dog show in 1908, they were renamed golden retrievers, and the name stuck. In 1925 the American Kennel Club accepted the golden retriever as a separate breed. In 2020, golden retrievers were the fourth most popular family dog behind Labrador retrievers, German shepherds and French bulldogs.

Labrador retrievers, on the other hand, came from the fishing and hunting dogs brought to the island of Newfoundland by French, Spanish, Portuguese and English fisherman. The dogs comingled on the island but were isolated from outside breeds. The result was a breed called the St. John’s water dog. They were particularly known for their swimming, diving and retrieving abilities and their short coats that shed water easily. The dogs, which were mostly black with white markings, were trained to haul nets and long lines, to dive for cod that had slipped off the hook, and to retrieve things like hats that fell into the water. These New World retrievers were introduced to England in the late 1840s, and British dog breeders incorporated them into their lines of British retrievers.

It didn’t stop there, though. These Labrador retrievers were smart, good-tempered and solid working dogs. The Seeing Eye discovered that they were excellent for guide work and added them to their program, which had been primarily German shepherds to that point. The Seeing Eye has maintained a scientific breeding program for labs for decades, selecting for traits that make them good dog guides and breeding out diseases such as progressive retinal atrophy. Dave is a product of that breeding. The original St. Johns Water dogs are no longer extant, but their blood lines survive in today’s British and Labrador retrievers. With St. John’s water dogs in his ancestry, it’s no wonder Dave loves to play in water.

These dogs keep our home lively and full of warmth and love.

Photo by Author. Alt text: Karen sits by the fireplace in a domestic moment with her dogs.  Dave, the Yellow Lab working dog, sits at her feet in his usual, supplicant “pleeez feed me!” pose.  Clancy, the Golden Retriever pet, assumes a somewhat undignified, submissive attitude under her bare feet.