Hank is our black lab. He is the best looking lab I’ve ever seen. I’m not bragging, seriously, my husband calls him our male model. The kids took that one step further and started calling him Zoolander. He is supposed to be a compact English breed, but he’s a large version, though not rangy like the American labs. He has a big square head and almost perfect confirmation, but he is no athlete. He had bone chips taken out of both elbows when he was four months old. That added another zero to his cost, nearly choking my husband at the time. Hank was his 40th birthday present, and we were already attached. What were we going to do, give him back?
Hank is a mellow dog, thank god. He stopped digging and chewing after about the age of two or three, but even then he wasn’t the sort to rip apart upholstery or move entire sprinkler systems, like my brother’s lab. He did eat all the vegetables we planted one summer, tomatoes, corn, he even pulled up the carrots. We haven’t bothered to plant any since. Food is his one vice, but it’s hard to hold it against him. I did get really mad at him once. I had spent fifteen minutes making a huge BLT that I was really looking forward to eating because I was ravenously hungry. I put my plate on the table and went to get the newspaper and when I came back I saw Hank helping himself to my sandwich. Luckily I had cut it in two and caught him before he swallowed the second half. I was suffering from low blood sugar at the time and I get really cranky when I’m hungry so that was the worst I’ve ever shouted at him. He’s never taken food off my plate since. He did eat most of a raspberry pie I left on the stove on another occasion, but that was during the night and I’m sure he thought we were finished with it.
All labs beg and give you that sad look like they’ve never had a meal in their lives, but Hank has perfected it. When we’re at the dinner table he sits at the corner between my husband and son where he can see all of us, in case we decide to take pity on him and give him a table scrap. His eyebrows are very expressive, moving independently of each other as his head swivels from person to person, looking a bit like Charlie Chaplin. The kids love to tease him, but he’s very quiet and polite in his begging. Sometimes he rests his head ever so gently on one of our thigh’s, glancing up hopefully. If he has any stringers (dubbed by my family as the long threads of drool hanging down on each side of his mouth), usually one of them will shout, “Hank! Gross! You slimed me!” Our dogs believe they are part of every meal so when guests come for dinner Hank makes a beeline for their chairs assuming they don’t know my rule of No Feeding Dogs From The Table. Nobody follows the rule, but Hank still believes I might be able to enforce it so he doesn’t waste opportunities. The guests are usually too polite to say anything, but I can see the pained expression on their faces after Hank has left a trail of drool on their trousers.
Other than when he’s begging, Hank has a very sunny disposition. He is good natured and always seems happy to go along with whatever we decide to do, whether it’s just a walk or being tortured by the kids in some elaborate game. He often looks to me for permission to do what they ask, not wanting to get into trouble. When I nod my okay, he bounds off with lots of tail wagging and tongue lolling. I wish the kids were that compliant. For me, Hank is an undemanding and yet soothing presence in the house. He likes to be near me when I’m home, follows me to the bathroom even. When I sign out from my computer in the kitchen, the recorded voice says, “Goodbye!” and Hank leaps up from wherever he is, knowing that word means I’m getting up and might just possibly take him for a walk. He loves me because I feed him and walk him, and though the kids are supposed to trade off those chores, I am more reliable. He is unquestionably loyal to me, though he dutifully sleeps with my daughter every night. Who wouldn’t love a dog like that?
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