The Wurtsbaughs love black labrador retrievers. Five-year-old Mille is their fifth. They lost their fourth, 14-year-old Lobo, in April earlier this year. The Wurtsbaughs bred their third lab Lotto and Lobo was the puppy they decided to keep from that litter of six.

 

When deciding to add another dog to the family during the Covid-19 pandemic, they found Millie at a breeder in Milwaukee. Her registered name with the American Kennel Club (AKC) is Candlewood’s Mega Millions Lotto, but the family calls her Milie for short.

 

Why Candlewood’s Mega Millions Lotto? Their other labs have had AKC registered names that refer to “hitting it big,” says owner Deborah, including Cash, Maxamillion, Lotto, and Big Game.

 

Deborah’s husband Mike trains their labs to waterfowl hunt. He takes them to Central Illinois (where he grew up), Missouri (near St. Louis at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers), and Stuttgart, Arkansas. The Wurtsbaughs moved to Atlanta from St. Louis. Mike has yet to take the labs waterfowl hunting in Georgia, but is interested.

 

Back at home on Club Drive, Millie loves to retrieve soccer balls. “The minute you let her outside, she has a ball in her mouth,” says Deborah. Millie also likes to pick up twigs and encourage whoever is outside with her to play fetch. The Wurtsbaughs say Millie has incredible depth perception and speed and is intelligent.

 

She also likes the water. Once at their lake home at Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri, Millie spent five minutes going underwater to retrieve an old table cover that had blown into the lake and been sitting at the bottom. “We could not figure out what she was doing,” says Deborah.

 

With Millie being a Covid dog, Deborah and Mike have let the pup break all the rules they set with their last four black labs. “Millie doesn’t know she is a dog yet,” says Deborah.

 

The black lab goes everywhere with them, weather permitting, including on long trips to the Midwest to visit family. Their adult kids Anna and Erin joke that the sprinter van Deborah and Mike purchased for those family trips was really for the dogs’ comfort and not their own, notes Deborah.

 

Like all the Wurtsbaughs’ dogs, Millie has become a special part of the family. She has a gentle personality and respectful demeanor, and is included in all family events -- even dinner. “She loves all proteins – but is very finicky and will not eat anything else,” says Deborah. “She sits patiently awaiting, looking at you with her sad eyes.” When dinner is over, Millie gets her people food snack.