Vanderbilt's Diamond in the Sky, call name Lucy

[Craig Larter]

A few picture of my Lab Lucy enjoying life in the marsh and uplands in 2017.

[Big D]

Gotta love those black Labs!

[Double Lab]

You know I love those black labs. Give Lucy a scratch for me.

[Quigley97]

The only thing better than looking at Labs is watching them do their work.

[Dean Romig]

Lucy in the sky with diamonds?





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[Devan Brown]

My Lab is also Lucy - and she retrieved in ice yesterday.

[Big D]

Mine also, but the only thing she retrieved yesterday was family Christmas dinner scraps

[Southpaw]

Originally Posted by Devan Brown

My Lab is also Lucy - and she retrieved in ice yesterday.

My very first lab was named Lucy. Very smart dog, maybe too smart. I think I posted about her here before. She was a mix between Kellog dogs that were primarily service animals and River Oaks Corky. She was runt of the litter so no one really wanted her. At that time PTSD was not really recognized condition and she would have been perfect in that role as a comfort animal.

I built an incredible bond with that dog before hunting season and even broke her from being gun shy. She loved me more than bacon and would actually grin to see me every time I came home from somewhere. However she did not really like to hunt since she viewed her mission statement was to just be with me. She knew how to retrieve and probably one of the best swimming dogs I ever had, she could flat out move through the water almost effortlessly. I thought man this great.

First time I had her hunting in really cold icy weather with my dads friends and my veterinarian that gave me the dog (thats why I knew so much about breeding), we shoot some ducks down and I send her. She did not budge. She was so cold she was just shivering and I try to send her again and she just looked up at me with this blank cold stare and let out a shivering almost moaning guttural growl. The laughs we got were painful, only thing I could do to save face was tell her to stay. That was easy for her since she was not budging and she did that with vim and vigor that cold morning.

Glad to hear other black labs named Lucy are punching through that icy barrier. Regardless I loved my Lucy more than anything and had her breed to a dog named Black Max that was another AKC champion. Lucy produced a great litter of pups and I got an incredible hunting dog from that litter. He had has mom's smarts and an incredible drive to please and retrieve. He did not do it all the time but he would actually dive down after swimming cripples. First time he did it freaked me out. We were hunting in a partly frozen beaver pond, part of pond even in deep water had ice so thick you could stand on it. The ducks had been working that area so much the open water we did have we guess was caused/created by their milling around. I shot a mallard down with that crappy just now forced in to use steel shot, that we did not know much about, and only crippled the duck. Send the dog and duck swims under the ice and my dog goes in under the ice after him. I was standing in waist deep water at the time but I think I almost walked on water for about 15 yards to get to the ice. Thankfully right as I got to the ice his head popped up in the open water.

He was gladly un-phased. I look over my shoulder and about 30 yards away that duck popped up in a hole on edge of pond that had much shallower water that was slushy from where we walked in thinking we could bust the ice. Grabbed my dog by the scruff of his neck and lifted and pushed him on top of the ice. I point the duck out to him and send him and he takes off and almost jumps on that duck. I think he wanted that dang bird more than I did. That was last time I ever used #6 steel shot. We used to kill ducks easily with 5 and 6 lead shot and did not know at the time how badly steel shot performed and patterned with tighter fixed choked guns.

[Double Lab]

Todd;
Was that Kellogg dog out of Mayo Kellogg's kennel in South Dakota?
If so I had one of his labs, one of the first kennels to produce the pointing lab, and he was a remarkable dog. Did it all. Sadly lost him at 9yrs. to cancer. This fellow Mayo was quite a character.

[Southpaw]

Originally Posted by Daryl Corona

Todd;
Was that Kellogg dog out of Mayo Kellogg's kennel in South Dakota?
If so I had one of his labs, one of the first kennels to produce the pointing lab, and he was a remarkable dog. Did it all. Sadly lost him at 9yrs. to cancer. This fellow Mayo was quite a character.

Yep, that is the one. I think you and I traded some comments about it a few weeks ago. I remember looking at the picture of your Lab with your signature and telling you how much it looked like one of my dogs. Great memories of both of my black labs, they have been gone now for close to 15 years. Life's turn has me in a position where I can't hunt as much to get a hunting lab but maybe someday will be able to get back at it.

If I buy another lab will really have to do some research. I have friends that have had lots of trouble with their labs in the hips. Really sorry to hear you lost your dog to cancer at 9, way to young you should of still gotten at least 2 or 3 good years out him and hopefully a couple of more where all he had to do was get the newspaper and pass gas.

I don't know what is about old labs but when they let one rip no matter what you feed them it can water an eye. I swore my Lucy did it to get back at me for all those years of making her go hunting even when I had her son doing all the really hard work. I only made her get the close ones after I sent Rufus and even then she had this look of "do I really have to, he's doing a great job and will do it when he gets back". Years alter where ever I would sit or stand for a bit she would come over lay down next to me and sure enough about 10 minutes later I would be saying "good gracious Lucy", she would not even raise her head up but she would have this little grin roll across her face.