I found a pic of the black lab I had while growing up.
His name was Bogie (after Bogart) and was most definitely my mothers dog. He weighed about 120 lbs. but liked to think he was a lap dog.
I remember playing a game of tag in the backyard with my brother and some of our friends. I was smaller than all of them and couldn't catch anybody. After a long time of fruitlessly chasing the other kids, I ran up to Bogie (who had been having a jolly time chasing all of us) and whacked him on the rump and yelled 'TAG you're IT!' I ran off laughing, but don't you know that crazy dog chased me all around the backyard until he 'bumped' me with his nose. He did an about face and ran off to where the other kids were waiting. Apparantly he understood the rules very well and I was once again 'It'. I could never catch him that night again.
He was such a great dog. The meter reading man was a mortal enemy. He was the friendliest dog to everyone as long as you came through the back door or the back fence with a family member. You jump over the fence or come through that gate alone, and you better run for it. I don't know that he would have really hurt anyone. His size alone deterred most from attempting to mess with him.
True to his lab nature, he loved water. We bought him one of those hard plastic kiddie pools and filled it up for him. It lasted a whole two days. There were little pictures of water dragons on the bottom of the pool and with the ripples in the water it must have looked like something moving under the water to him. He plunged his head under water and barked and barked at the little moving pictures. It was hilarious 'blorkpf blorkpf' is about as close as I can come to what underwater barking sounds like. Anyway, he finally managed to bite one of the dragons and put a hole in his pool.
Oh there are so many memories of that old doggie...too many for just one post.
