Tessa the Labradog's full name is "Lagniappe Tessa of Westover," but she uses it only on formal occasions. Since formality doesn't have much importance in a Lab's everyday life, we have been commanded to use the shorter form. She was born September 3rd, 1996 at Lagniappe Labradors in Springfield, VA and came to us as an 8-week old puppy. Tessa is about as laid-back as a dog can get. She was the easiest pup we ever raised, and didn't even cry on her first night with us. When we remarked on how unusual this was, she stuck her head up out of the box and said, "Mother, littermates, who cares? You're feeding me, right? I'm home!" Tessa's model of Regal Deportment is the late Queen Victoria.
She is a languid beauty who believes that since she was hired for her looks, it's unreasonable to demand that she be useful and not just decorative. This is actually a good thing: when we got her, her brain was on back order; and when it arrived, it was a size too small. I hadn't realized until then that this is pretty much the standard for Chocolate Labs. I once tried reminding her she was, in fact, a retriever, and her job was, well, retrieving things I'd shot. Her indignant response was, "Listen, buster, if you think I'm going to jump into freezing water and swim just to bring you a dead duck, you're nuts. My role in this household is to keep the fireplace rug from being sucked up the chimney, and to see that Mama doesn't get cold at night!" Nevertheless, she does occasionally revert to her primitive origins. Once she killed a rabbit, much to my wife's dismay, and we suspect she shares Tycho's woodchucks now and then.
Ever respectful of The Code Of Labrador Retriever, she'll eat anything that doesn't eat her first. The only things we've found she doesn't like are black olives and mushrooms. She loves sauerkraut, but giving a Lab sauerkraut is a violation of the Geneva Convention against the production of gas warfare materials, if you know what I mean.
With the arrival of Tycho into the pack, we thought there might have been a change in her status. She served unchallenged as Senior Dog since Tucker's death in September of 2000. But as she aged she had become even more queenly and authoritarian, and she was having none of that kind of talk in her realm. Tycho and she and he had some vigorous discussions of the matter of seniority and who was running the house; after which she assigned him the job of Assistant Dog In Charge Of Yard Patrol. That's where things stand today.
| Susan | Tycho | Meg | Tessa | Toby | Tucker | Dante | Penny |
