Casey; still the best dog in the world...

So the love of my life, Casey (aka Bear, boozel, boooger, Casey Jones, Falkor) is 13 as of May 28th 2009. Now it is my closely-held belief that he is hands down the best dog in the world and usually he proves me correct through his interactions with other people, dogs, and experiences --until last week.

During a nice evening we headed out to our secret fishing location and happened on a sailboat tied up right over our favorite spot (bummer). But alas, we moved down and still did alright on the fish count. However, sailboat owner came to take his boat out while we were fishing and approached Casey with a confidence that most people don't usually show when approaching a dog that they've never met before. I noticed this, but didn't think much of it because, well, he IS the best dog in the world and would never harm a human or otherwise (for pete's sake he rescued a baby rabbit that would have died by carrying it to my mom in his mouth!!!!!). So sailboat owner approaches Casey and places (doesn't give, but places) his hand on Casey's snout, for what I'm assuming is the sniff-check. He then pets Casey on the head and looks up to talk to me. At this point, he retracts his hand slightly and Casey snaps his jaws together and growls. He didn't bite him, just got a little crabbie. I apologized to the man who told Casey, "Wow, I almost thought you were the most mellow dog I've ever met!"

I was kinda bummed thinking that at Casey's young age of 13 that he was getting grumpy and his hearing was going and his sight isn't the best so maybe he just made a mistake.. until I stumbled upon this quote from Plato....

"The disposition of noble dogs is to be gentle with people they know and the opposite with those they don't know... How, then, can the dog be anything other than a lover of learning since it defines what's its own and what's alien."

...and in reading that, I found my peace with the situation and my still-perfect dog who must have felt that the sailboat guy was a bit off.