Conan's Obituary February 10, 1999 - January 10, 2014 Registered name: McClain's Conan the Destroyer - tongue in cheek, "destroyer" of shoes, bi-fold doors, and some trim.... His name was derived from the many Arnold Schwarzenegger movies of which our Zac had become a fan. Conan became a part of our family back in the spring of 1999, about two months after moving into our new house. Scott and I had been talking about Labradors and half-heartedly checking the newspaper. We were actually home sick together when we saw an ad for "Fox Red Lab Puppies". Having never heard of a "red" Lab, we decided to check it out! After an initial visit, we returned the next night, April 1st, 1999, with the Kasee and Zac. There were two males available (out of fourteen puppies!). It was very difficult to choose, so we decided whichever one "picked" Zac would be the one to join our family. The rest, as they say, is history. ;-) Conan was nothing but a joy in the 14+ years we were blessed to spend together (5399 days, but who's counting?!). Even in his puppy and "teenage" years, his challenges were minimal - it was always clear he wanted to please, he just needed direction as to how. Ironically, in retrospect, he seemed to "grow up" with the kids (Zac wasn't quite six when our family 'expanded'...the girls just twelve and thirteen), lighten and energize our "empty nest" in his middle age years, and then seemed to grow old with my stepdad, Dick, sharing a strangely parallel journey in their last years. We treasure every day we had, every stage we experienced, every part of our mutually changing lives we walked through together - it just seems they went so fast. Conan's favorite things were fetching, swimming, hiking, swimming, fetching, going for rides, fetching, playing in the snow, fetching, walking on the bike path, swimming, fetching some more....and loving his family.