Chuck Williams: Living life large with labs

I can’t wait to get home and give BoJack and Maggie a couple of doggie treats. Turns out they are way more popular than the other dogs, but I could have told you that years ago.

You see, for the 25th consecutive year the Labrador retriever has earned the title of America’s most popular dog breed, according to the American Kennel Club.

We have two labs — OK, so we have one and some change. BoJack is all black lab. Maggie is mostly black lab, but there is some question about the rest of her origin. For the purposes of the doggie treat celebration, she will be just as much lab as BoJack.

Maggie, a rescue dog, joined us shortly after we moved downtown more than five years ago. It didn’t take long to figure out she was an inside dog that needed to be an outside dog. And if she was going to be exiled to the backyard, she needed a companion, so my wife reasoned.

That is where BoJack came into the picture.

When we met BoJack more than four years ago, it was obvious from the beginning he was going home with us. And I will tell you why, to see BoJack is to instantly love him. He has the classic lab traits with a massive head and catcher’s mitt-sized paws. Oh, did I tell you? BoJack is close to 120 pounds. He’s the man of the house.

We found him via Facebook. My wife was online when a post looking for a home for this dog rolled across her screen. Before the weekend was over, we were meeting BoJack for the first time, though his name was not BoJack back then. It was simply Bo.

He was a twice-failed hunting dog that had been abandoned. Apparently someone didn’t even take the tags off him when they dumped him, so the woman knew his name was Bo and she was able to trace his history.

Before we took him home I negotiated a name change. My favorite athlete of all time is Bo Jackson. This regal animal, with its size and agility, was worthy of Bo’s name, thus BoJack. My wife got her lab. and I got my BoJack.

The story goes he was gun shy. He doesn’t have to worry about shotguns any more, but several times a year he is chased into an inside hallway during a downtown fireworks show.

BoJack and Maggie live the good life in the backyard. They bark at the trains that run through downtown and along the Alabama riverbank. They raise hell when other dogs have the gall to walk past our home. And let’s don’t talk about noon on Saturdays.

Over the last couple of years, we have added two more dogs. Before you call the city dog police, we are still one below the legal limit. We have Dixie Lee, named for a former fictional Miss Crestview, and Yoda, a 7-pound Chihuahua.

My favorite stupid pet trick is to throw a small rubber football across the yard and watch all four dogs give chase. It almost always comes down to BoJack and Yoda. BoJack is usually the first to grab the ball, which is not much smaller than Yoda.

Yoda then barks like a mad man chasing BoJack back to the thrower.

Right after I give BoJack his treat, I am going to tell Yoda that BoJack is the most popular one. The Chihuahua is going to love that.

This story was originally published February 22, 2016 at 4:18 PM with the headline "Chuck Williams: Living life large with labs."