Labrador puppy warms the hearts of local military family

“I’m retiring from the military on April 30 this year, so I’m super excited to have a little buddy to hang out with,” said Brian, whose military service dates back 23 years.

He said he sometimes has difficulty dealing with things that happened to him during his military deployment.

“For me, just having that dog is super comforting. I don't know how to put it in words, but it is super calming, and I'm grateful that we were able to get him.”

Brian and his wife, Jen, and their daughters, Madison and Allyson, received Dakota on Christmas Day from Northlake Labradors Kennel, a dog breeder in Napoleon, North Dakota.

Earlier that year, Northlake Labrador owners Steve Silbernagel and his wife Phylis Brotten had contacted the Beyond the Yellow Ribbon Network in Hugo about their desire to donate a male black Lab puppy to a deserving military member who’s been deployed overseas.

Beyond the Yellow Ribbon Network assists military-connected families with various needs they might have when one of their members is deployed. The Chaffees have helped the Hugo network’s chair, Chuck Haas, with the organization through the years.

So when Haas found out about the dog donation, he reached out to Jen — who also is in the National Guard — to see if her family wanted a dog.

The Chaffees initially declined the offer because of their tradition of having female dogs in their family. However, the breeders eventually decided they’d donate two dogs: one male Labrador to a different military veteran and a female Labrador to the Chaffees.

Wires got crossed while the Chaffees visited Napoleon to pick up their puppy, however, and they wound up bringing home a male instead.

“After our eight-hour drive home, we realized that we actually had a boy dog,” Jen recalled with a chuckle.

The Chaffees aren’t complaining, though, and are happy to have added Dakota to their family alongside Daisy, their 6-year-old golden retriever.

“The dog is good, sleeps through the night. He slept the night we got him. Very gentle. Very well mannered,” Brian said of Dakota.

The Chaffees are also touched by the generosity of Silbernagel and Brotten for donating Dakota.

“The breeding is part of their livelihood, so for them to have said, ‘Nope, we're going to elect to not keep this dog for future breeding’ was pretty amazing,” Jen said.

Brian’s military career started in February 2000 when he enlisted in the Marine Corps. His four-year stint in that branch saw him deployed in the South Pacific to places such as East Timor, Okinawa and the Philippines.

After he got out of the Marines, Brian felt he was “missing something” and decided to join the National Guard.

“Soon after that, I was sent down to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, to mobilize to deploy with the 34th Infantry Division First Brigade, which ended up being that long deployment that everybody talks about,” Brian said, referring to that unit’s 22-month-long deployment during the Iraq War.

Upon returning home from Iraq, Brian stayed on active duty to train other soldiers who were to be deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo.

Jen enlisted in the National Guard in May 2002 and marked her 20th year of service last year. Throughout that time, she’s embarked on three deployments overseas: Her first was 2004-2005; her second was January 2006 to July 2007; and her most recent was October 2019 to October 2020.

She remains on active duty with the National Guard and said she has “no planned retirement date yet on my horizon.”