Monday, June 30, 2008

Teen's best friend


As I wind my way through the annals of Wake Forest's history, reading old newspapers, I occasionally come across a story or photo that jumps off the page or speaks to me. This story, originally published in the Oct. 18, 1990, edition of The Wake Weekly, is one of them. It was written by Jimmy Allen, who was news editor at the time and is now pastor at Heritage Baptist Church.

The ultimate act of love is giving one’s life for someone. A concept sometimes hard for humans to grasp, it apparently represents what a pet dog did for her best friend last Tuesday morning. The dog, a three-year-old Labrador retriever named Blackey, is credited with saving 15-year-old George Campeau Jr.’s life in a daring move that killed her.

“It really is an unusual story — one with a happy ending and a sad ending,” George’s mother, Phyllis, said.

Like every school morning, George walked down the dirt path from his home Tuesday, and Blackey played with George and other dogs on their way to the bus stop. This particular morning was foggy, and George, recovering from surgery to his nose, looked to the right, left and right again before starting to cross Ligon Mill. He did not see any vehicles. Blackey had already crossed the road when she turned back and noticed George walking into the path of a small pick-up truck. The approximately 100-pound dog ran and leaped into the air toward George, striking him in the chest with her paws and knocking him back across the south-bound lane. The truck was so close to George, it struck Blackey.

The Labrador often jumped when she was excited, George said, but she always did so from a standing position. Tuesday, she ran and jumped.

“I remember seeing Blackey running right at me,” George said. “Then I saw the headlight (about two to three feet away). She was pretty far up in the air. She knew what she was doing.”

George and Blackey had spent the past three years together, often playing. “She just hung by me. If I jumped in the water, she’d jump in right after me.”

George, who is taking driver’s education, sometimes drove the family’s truck down the path to the bus stop, with Blackey inside. Blackey waited by the truck eight hours until George returned on the bus.Described by family members as friendly, smart and tireless, Blackey was almost taken to the Wake SPCA as a puppy. George’s aunt, Toni Campeau, carried the dog to the family on Thanksgiving Day in 1987, and gave her to George’s sister, Amy. The Campeaus decided to keep the little dog. Although Blackey chewed items he should not have (including the bottom of a 100-year-old chair, the front-porch railing and insulation in a pick-up truck the morning she was killed), she became a fixture in the Campeau family.

“I loved her,” George Sr. said.

Because of regional television coverage of the accident, Frank Walker of Fayetteville donated a five-week old black chow puppy to the Campeaus (see Wake Weekly photo above). The younger George said he likes the puppy who runs with full enthusiasm before dropping to the ground for a short nap. It will take awhile, though, before the new puppy, Bear, becomes a Blackey, George said.

Despite the enthusiasm for life Blackey showed, she will be remembered mostly for her last jump.

“I feel like she saved my son,” Phyllis said.