Living in the San Francisco Bay area is very different from how I grew up in Alabama. My youth was filled with things like sports; playing in the yard with my friends; romping through the woods; shooting birds, squirrels, and just about whatever moved, with my bee-bee gun; fishing; hunting; gardening; swimming; boating; water skiing; and, of course, dogs. I always had a dog growing up. And so did everybody I knew. Dogs were an assumed part of life.
My wife, though, grew up in Taiwan. When I was a boy, my father used to make jokes about my friends and I “digging a hole to China.” Well, Taiwan is just about exactly on the opposite side of the world from Alabama, and life is very different there. My wife had never had a dog in her life. So, a few months after we were married, before we had children, I bought a special birthday present for my wife – a black lab!
I had become completely enthralled with black labs as a ten-year-old boy. My family had a lot on Lake Tuscaloosa, and we would go the lake weekly during the summers. One day, the teenage boy on the lot next to us was playing fetch with his black lab. The boy threw a tennis ball halfway across the lagoon, and his black lab raced and dove into the water, swam to the middle of the lagoon, retrieved the tennis ball and brought it straight back to his master. And he did it over, and over, and over again. I was wide-eyed. I knew on that day that I would have to have a black lab one day. We named the black lab puppy I bought for my wife Kiddo.
Kiddo was a great dog. She was extremely intelligent; she had fantastic hunting instincts; she was the best fetcher I’ve ever seen (even better than that dog at Lake Tuscaloosa when I was ten years old); she was nearly perfectly obedient; she was a good watch dog; and she was gentle and affectionate – a great pet! We regret not breeding Kiddo. But we were too busy with work, moving to a new house, and especially, taking care of our four children. We never even had time to think about breeding Kiddo. But now that she’s gone, we realize what a very special dog Kiddo was.
After thirteen years with us, Kiddo got cancer and had to be put down. When I left her at the vet, in the hallway just after I petted her for the last time and closed the door, I had to brace myself against the wall, because I was crying uncontrollably. I know that seems silly, and maybe it’s not even right (I don’t know), but Kiddo was a such a special dog. It ripped my heart to leave her. My wife was overcome with grief too. She cried for several days. For months after losing Kiddo, I would still look for her when getting out of the car to unlock the front gate after returning home. For so long, she had run up to greet me every time I came home. Subconsciously, I could not help but keep looking for her.
Well, we knew we had to get another lab puppy soon. My mind got moving (it can be scary when that happens), and I got the idea that, instead of getting just one puppy, perhaps we should get several. Separately, I had been looking for ways for my children to earn money. We don’t pay them for doing family chores – that’s just part of their responsibility as members of the family. But I want them to have their own money. I started earning money when I was ten years old, by cutting grass in my neighborhood. At that time, my mother taught me, who had been taught by her grandfather: “Whenever you make money, give the first ten percent to God. Then save ten percent, and learn to live off the rest.” I wanted to teach my children the same lesson. But there is not a lot of potential for cutting grass in our neighborhood, since professionals have the market locked down. My children were recycling plastic bottles to earn a little money. But I wanted them to have an opportunity to make more money than is possible from recycling. My idea was to start breeding labs. This would be my children’s business. My wife and I are the investors, and my children are management. After recovering costs, all profits will be split 50% to the investors and 50% to management. This is how South Bay Labs was born.