Labradoodle & Goldendoodle Forum
LARRY BABB – APRIL 7, 1948 to OCTOBER 19, 2008
Seattle has lost its best and most outspoken dog trainer. Larry Babb sadly died from complications of lung cancer yesterday. For us and many other local dog owners and dog lovers, Larry’s passing means the end to an era of obedience classes at Pawsabilities. We take comfort in knowing that Larry’s booming voice will forever echo inside the indoor training center in Tukwila, and no human or dog who ever sat their feet or paws inside will forget Larry’s no-nonsense, dry humor approach to dog training.
Every class started with a warm-up session, where Larry would stand in the center of the ring, wearing his old US AirForce baseball cap and holding a Venti-sized coffee cup from Starbucks. He'd lead us around the ring by shouting out commands, in between taking sips of lukewarm coffee. Get REEEADY, FORWARD! ABOUT TURN! LEFT ABOUT TURN! GO SLOOOOOW… FASTER… RUN… BACK TO NORMAL! HALT! IIIIIINSTANT SIT! PRAISE A GOOD DOG!
Larry was our dogs’ number 1 advocate – he rarely thought a dog was to blame for any problems. Larry willingly shared his wealth of knowledge about all dog-related matters, and would often give free private sessions after class, if you asked him for advice. If an owner didn’t “get it”, Larry would take over the dog, and within seconds make it behave perfectly. He truly was a gifted trainer and communicator, and he will be greatly missed by all his human and canine students from the past 20 years.
Larry, we hope that you have been reunited with all your past beloved dogs by now, and that you will continue to teach good doggie manners and perfect Figure 8's on the other side! We feel lucky to have been coming to your classes for the past 3 ½ years, and learning almost everything we know about dogs from you.
Eva, Mark, Dan, Lilo and Rocky
Every class started with a warm-up session, where Larry would stand in the center of the ring, wearing his old US AirForce baseball cap and holding a Venti-sized coffee cup from Starbucks. He'd lead us around the ring by shouting out commands, in between taking sips of lukewarm coffee. Get REEEADY, FORWARD! ABOUT TURN! LEFT ABOUT TURN! GO SLOOOOOW… FASTER… RUN… BACK TO NORMAL! HALT! IIIIIINSTANT SIT! PRAISE A GOOD DOG!
Larry was our dogs’ number 1 advocate – he rarely thought a dog was to blame for any problems. Larry willingly shared his wealth of knowledge about all dog-related matters, and would often give free private sessions after class, if you asked him for advice. If an owner didn’t “get it”, Larry would take over the dog, and within seconds make it behave perfectly. He truly was a gifted trainer and communicator, and he will be greatly missed by all his human and canine students from the past 20 years.
Larry, we hope that you have been reunited with all your past beloved dogs by now, and that you will continue to teach good doggie manners and perfect Figure 8's on the other side! We feel lucky to have been coming to your classes for the past 3 ½ years, and learning almost everything we know about dogs from you.
Eva, Mark, Dan, Lilo and Rocky
Comment
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Comment by Dana Babb on November 3, 2008 at 11:52am
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Hi, Eva... Dana here - I wanted you to know how touched I was by your comments about Larry. They are deeply appreciated. It truly helps knowing that people and their dogs cared for him as much as I did and miss him so much. I also wanted you to know how much Larry enjoyed working with you, Lilo and Rocky - Lilo was probably the Doodle that he judged all others by :) Very few lived up to Lilo's standard! -Dana
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Comment by Tamara & Giada on October 28, 2008 at 9:48am
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That is so sad..............sound like he'll be deaely missed:(
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