These are my dogs, Strider and Crackers. They love each other.

The big, 87-lb AKC Labrador Retriever is Strider.  He was born on 15-Oct-1998 and I adopted him when he was 8-weeks old.  He is from the northeast--a place called Salisbury, Maryland.  Strider's registered name is "Strider Spirit of Rufus".  He was named after the character "Strider" in Lord of the Rings as well as a Labrador my dad used to have, "Rufus".

You might notice that Strider is taller than most Labs that you have seen. He is a "field lab". The term "field lab" means that he is from a line of Labradors bred to excel at retrieving. Many of his bloodline have achieved "Junior Hunter" status.

The little, 37-lb dog is Crackers.  She was probably born in January or February of 2000.  She appears to be a mix of Chow and German Shephard with some Labrador thrown in.  How did I come to adopt Crackers?  Well...

In June of 2000, someone dropped two tick- and flea-infested 5-month old pups in my front yard.  I started feeding them and tried to find a home for them.  Fortunately one of my neighbors adopted one of them.

But since I couldn't find a home for the other, I ended up keeping her.  What else could I do?  I made the decision to keep her on the 4th of July and so named her "Crackers" as in "Firecrackers".

The two of them love to play.  Crackers is 1/3rd as big as Strider but she is not the least bit intimidated by him and plays just as hard with him as he does with her.  And he plays as rough with her as he would play with another big Lab. When they play tug-of-war, he ends up just dragging her across the grass.