This is my first REAL post, and since I have this cool title to my blog, I'll start with black labs. The honest truth is that I fell madly in love at age eight.

(Sung to the tune of "Copa Cabana")

His name was Pepper
He was a blockhead
With no leash upon his neck
He was really smart as heck

His owner brought him
Each week to practice
I rubbed his back and face and chin
Then my girlish head would spin

I knew I loved that pup
And when I grew up
I just had to have a lab
I had that canine "kup" (that's Yiddish for head or mindset)

Okay, okay, I'm just being silly. It is the truth, though, that I fell for a dog named Pepper at choir practice. His owner never had him on a leash because he didn't need one. He obeyed. He sat quietly. He endured children including me. He was smart and friendly and I began my fantasy of owning a black lab of my own some day. Six weeks after my husband and I bought our first house, we had a baby girl - an AKC registered female named Cricket. She was the sweetest thing - probably the dumbest, as well, but sweetest. I say she was dumb because if she was in the bathroom which had two doors and one was shut, she couldn't find her way out. On the other hand, she figured out how to work the step-on mechanism on the trash compactor and used it as a self-serve snack machine.

I'm going to fast forward to many years later (I'll post on the middle years at a later date.), a year after Cricket passed away and we were a family with a palpable hole in it. We heard that a direct descendant of the original Pepper was pregnant and expecting a litter of all blacks soon. Well, we just HAD to have one of Pepper's great-great-great...grandpups, and shortly found ourselves bringing home an eight week old, fifteen pound bundle of joy whom we reverently named Pepper.

Pepper is presently a 95 lb. GORGEOUS boy. He has a perfect block head, big paws, and a picturesque physique worthy of a calendar. While he has outgrown the obligatory mischievous puppyhood, he still has a few moments when he deserves the "I can't control myself" sign hung on him as he faces the wall in the corner. He cannot resist eating flip-flops; he nibbles trash novels; he gets high off of dirty sweat socks. On the other hand, he almost never barks, he freezes when he sees a squirrel or cat (like when the kids play the statue game), and he doesn't drink from the toilet. He is always in a good mood, and always has a wiggle for visitors. Regrettably, he is not a kissy dog, but he does prefer closeness, and his snuggle on the couch is worthy of attention. At two and a half years old, Pepper is the near perfect model of a suburban dog.

I'll tell you more later, but for now, suffice to say that I am truly in love with this beast.