Outdoor dog needed

Fourteen years ago, when I was looking for good all around outdoors dog, my friend Dr. Greg Todd recommended a Labrador Retriever. These canines, bred for hunting, love the water.

When I was a boy, my family took in a stray black lab that we called Skeeter. This 80-pound brute once ate a whole pound of butter. Another time, he grabbed a pound of bacon thawing on the kitchen table and downed in one gulp, paper and all.

We lived next tot he woods and during the summer, this dog would bust loose to chase the mosquito control trucks that sprayed the nearby swamp. The driver thought my mother was crazy as she ran down the street after the dog yelling "Skeeter, Skeeter."

When Skeeter died, we got another stray, a Newfoundland St. Bernard named Nicky. My mother thought the dog had been neutered until one day it slipped its chain and broke through a screen door after a poodle in heat.

I got Lucy the Lab hoping to teach her how to surf. Instead, she liked to eat women's shoes and sleep on the couch. Eventually, I got Lucy a sister, another lab named Sarah. I tried to train this devious dog but the instructor said she was an alpha female with a high prey instinct, or in other words, a cross between Hillary Clinton and Dick Cheney, with a touch of Karl Rove.

Sarah's not herself these days, since Lucy recently headed off for that big dog park in the sky. I'm looking for another dog to keep Sarah company. I'll tell my wife it was a stray and just wandered into our yard. Any suggestions? E-mail me at Tomalin@sptimes.com.