11-1-22 Remembering Jake

For those that follow me on Facebook y'all know that my dog Jake died last Wednesday (Oct 26th). No need for further sympathy wishes, I just want to memorialize Jake on my blog in case Facebook (Meta) goes BK one day.

I found Jake in November 2010 in the small town of Bedias Texas. My great friend Matthew (Bo) Bobo had invited my family down to their ranch house for their annual burn bash (the Aggie ritual of burning everything that needs to be burned). We had recently lost our prior dog Bordeaux (a wolfhound/coyote mix no kidding) in the summer of that year and we were on the waitlist for a purebred wolfhound. Well this four month old black and white lab puppy wandered up to me while we were grilling food in the town square. He had a slight limp (it looked like he had been hit by a car) and wouldn't leave me alone. Bo knew he must be a stray and said he is yours. I said no I want a wolfhound. By now my two young boys had come up to us and of course said they want him, so did my wife Moshira. I was outnumbered and had to admit he was cute. While those three wanted to name him Oreo after his black and white features, I held firm and said hell no he needs a real Texas name like Jake (because he looked like he would eat snakes). So Jake the Snake came back up to DFW to live with us.

Twelve years later he was the best dog I ever had. We walked every day, he had a great bark and no bite (perfect to keep the strangers away), loved holding a kong ball in his mouth (I swear he once fit three tennis balls in his mouth), and passionately hated cats and squirrels. We nicknamed him VFL (very f'ing lucky) for moving from Bedias as a stray to DFW with us. He died too soon from that bad leg (arthritis in the hind legs made it difficult for him to get up each day), but we literally had our daily walk up until his last day a week ago. Turns out I was the one who was VFL to have Jake as my dog. I had a bottle of 2018 Duckhorn Merlot (Atlas Peak) last night on Halloween as I thought about him.