Kate and The Boys

(I didn't start this intending to write so much about our dogs. If you're in a hurry, scroll to the last paragraph and the pictures at the bottom.)

Before we had Kate, we had two boys: Max and Cooper, our yellow Labs. Max was born March 6, 2009, and Cooper was born October 6, 2009, so Max is 7 months older.

Max is smaller at 80 pounds, but what he "lacks" in size, he makes up for in speed, endurance, and overall athleticism. He'll run with MAXIMUM effort as long as I'll throw a ball for him to chase. When he's tired, he'll come back to me and lie down a few feet away with the ball between his paws, as if to say, "Give me a minute, Kev." Even so, if I throw another ball, he'll take off after it. (FYI, I give him a minute to rest.) Kelley's parents live on a lake and their dock is about 5-6 feet above the water during the summer months (9,10+ feet in the winter, and the drop doesn't bother the boys at all). Both dogs love going there and jumping off the dock chasing tennis balls. If I don't throw a ball for a while, Max jumps in chasing nothing.

Cooper is bigger at 105 pounds, bigger in every way: head, height, width, paws, tail . . .

But don't let his bigger size fool you. At least for a few sprints, he's about as fast as Max. The first few ball tosses (I throw one ball for each dog), Cooper is the first to the balls as often as Max. He doesn't have Max's endurance, though. When Cooper gets tired, he plods along after the ball. He always gets it, but he lets me know he's in no hurry. He's still athletic, though. He's a leaper. I love to lead him with long throws that bounce right in front of him. He leaps up like A.J. Green and snatches the ball out of the air, all in full stride. And it makes me feel like Tim Tebow - hey, don't laugh, Tebow is excellent at the deep ball!

We discovered Cooper's leaping ability the night we brought him home. When Max was little, we could put him on a chair or ottoman in the living room and he'd stay because he was scared to jump off. Cooper jumped off instantly, fearlessly.

Cooper's fearlessness and leaping ability proved to be a real pain for us as he lived in our laundry room for the first couple months. It was winter and we didn't want him outside in the cold. The baby gate that kept Max where we wanted him was no match for Cooper. We discovered this one night when we heard the sound of glass breaking. At first I thought someone was breaking in, but it was just Cooper. He'd leaped the baby gate and was destroying a glass ornament off the Christmas tree. I had to raise the baby gate so high that we couldn't step over it, and then block the open space at the bottom with my 60 lb and 55 lb dumbbells. One of Cooper's first sentences was, "YOU CANNOT CONTAIN ME!!!" (Our dogs talk to us, by the way, and each has his own unique sound. Cooper, being younger, speaks slower, isn't great with grammar, and struggles with bigger words. I could give you plenty of examples, but this is supposed to be a blog about KATE and the boys.)

I'm almost finished bragging about Cooper and trying to convince you that he's not a big slob. At the lake, Max launches himself off the dock for DISTANCE. He'd be a natural for that dog distance diving competition you may have seen on ESPN. Cooper couldn't care less about distance; he goes for HEIGHT. It's so funny. Max barely makes a splash when he lands because he's more or less skiing across the top of the water when he lands. Cooper leaps up as high as possible, and as you know, what comes up must come down. And he comes down with a mammoth SPLOOSH! When he rises back to the surface, THEN he takes off for the ball. Because he's so big and strong, he's a faster swimmer than Max. His big paws move a lot of water.

Being WATER DOGS, it's particularly funny that Cooper can't stand water from a hose. Without a lake in our yard, the next best thing for Max is the water hose. He jumps through the stream, "eats" it, and becomes a soaking wet mess. Meanwhile, Cooper stands behind whoever has the hose. If you come close to pointing it in his direction, he circles back behind you, saying, "I don't like getting squirted wif wah-der, y'all!"

To each other, Max generally acts like a wimp and Cooper acts like the boss. To anyone who attempts to walk in our yard, Max is the GREAT DEFENDER while Cooper invites them in to play. Everybody says, "It's that little one I'm worried about." To us, Cooper is the loving one, and Max is the hyper one. So, with their contrasting expressions, we've wondered how they'd be with Kate. We've had her around them since we brought her home and they've been pretty gentle - the harshest thing was a few aggressive licks we couldn't avoid. Yesterday I found out how they're going to be with her. I had her in the gym with me, nowhere near the door. The dogs usually lie just outside the door watching me. Kate crawled to them, and I cautiously started taking pictures. Here's what happened (Max has red collar, Cooper has black collar):