Backup Pack
Jake
(1999 - 2005)

Jake the Dog and his bone

If all friends were such
as he, this world would be safe.
Rest now. Forever.

If you knew him, you'd know he was a Child of the Secret himself. We got him when he was 10 weeks old, and no one knows what happened to him in those 10 weeks. His family of choice was worth fighting for, he was ever vigilant against all threats and afraid of absolutely nothing. (At four months old he took down a huge male Rottie who seemed a threat to me. Just stood on that Rottie's chest and snarled.) He also had an eye for pretty ladies of the human kind. He would spot them from a mile away. Once on a walk, he was staring at a pretty girl on the other side of the street so hard that he never saw the mailbox. Walked right into it — BONG! went his head. The girl had seen him staring at her and just cracked up!

He nursed my wife and I through sickness, he got us over heartache, watched over us in bad times. He's on the other side with the rest of the pack now, and I hope he's finally resting.



Julie and Jeff rescued Jake the Dog at age 10 weeks from the Peninsula Humane Society. As you can see, Jake the puppy was a complete bundle of energy who never slowed down (well almost never...).

 Jake the Puppy

Now he's a full partner in The Barneson Group, a management consulting firm. Here's what the New York Times Workplace section had to say about Jake the Dog:

"I'm told that there are dogs who help their humans work. Jeff Steen, a management consultant in San Francisco, uses his Jake, a 16-month-old mix of Labrador retriever and Rhodesian Ridgeback, in place of a clock. The two are at their desk (one in front of it, the other under it) by 8 a.m.

Then, at 4 p.m., Mr. Steen says, "Jake's job is to make me take a break" so that Jake can take a walk.

At about 7 p.m. "he makes certain that I know it is time for play by placing his toy ever so gently in my crotch," says Mr. Steen. "That is kind of like the old whistle in the factory that signals the end of the shift."

Or as Julie, Jeff's beautiful wife, says ... "trusty assistant is beside you again."