Chad photo by @gala_san on Unsplash
Our tradition was to sit on my folk’s back patio in warm weather at 5pm for happy hour. Dad rigged up a sound system and played classical music and opera. It was relaxing sitting there in the balmy evening air talking, eating mixed nuts and having a cocktail or a soda to strains of La Boheme. Eventually the cicada would start their hypnotic chant.
One lovely evening as we sat there, Chad, my Dad’s bird dog appeared with a full roast in his gentle bird dog mouth. Rwrot Rwrow. The shocked silence was broken by my Dad.
Dad: Chad. Drop it, drop it now.
Mom: Oh my god, whose roast is that?
Dad: I don’t know, we’ll have to call around.
Mom: Well I’m in the middle of making dinner
Dad: Apparently someone else is too and they’re about to grill out with no roast.
Mom huffed back inside and started dialing. Dad scooped the meat off the ground and plunked it on the platter I’d grabbed from the kitchen. We anxiously surveyed the roast. Other than a few tooth marks and some dog spit, it looked ok given it had been carried across suburbia by a bored bird dog on a successful reconnaissance mission. Dad wiped it off with a paper towel and plumped it a few times and by god the roast looked good as new.
Mom yelled from the house, “I found them! It’s the Darnaby’s roast. I apologized and told them we’d replace it but they said to just have one of the kids run it down there.”
My brother carried the roast over to the Darnaby house and came back laughing.
“They’re gonna eat it!” he said. “Mr. Darnaby said they’re just gonna grill since it looked fine. They weren’t really mad or anything. Hope they go for well done.”
Ick. Mr. Darnaby had clearly never looked in that dog’s mouth, that’s for sure or he would have made us buy him and new roast and take his family out to dinner on the spot. There was a moment of stunned silence and then we all burst out laughing. Dad said proudly, “Chad always did have a soft mouth. Good dog, Chad.”
Want another Chad story? You can find how he decimated Thanksgiving here: Click to read more about Chad
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