Al Cooper, from Albertville, Minnesota, had wanted a Bernese mountain dog ever since he saw them while vacationing in Austria.
Later, while recovering from cancer, he finally got his wish.
“My daughter called me one day telling me she saw an ad for some Bernese puppies for sale in Blaine, so went to look at them,” he told Senior Perspective.
Al chose to adopt the runt of the litter and named the fluffball Davos.
The breed is energetic, and the puppy always wanted to play, so much of Al’s time was spent bringing the dog on long walks and going on adventures. Al lives next to the Cedar Creek Golf Course and is used to finding lost = balls on his walks. One day, when they had nothing else to do, he developed a little game to play with Davos. “Ever since he was a pup, I started training him to look for golf balls,” he explained, “and he just became a natural at it.”
Al would hide a Pro V 1 golf ball in a Dixie cup in a series of cups, like the traditional, swindler shell game.
“Each time I mixed the cups around he’d knock over the right cup with his paw that had a Pro V 1 ball underneath it, and for getting it right, he’d get a treat.”
After Davos had perfected Al’s game, the two started to hunt for lost golf balls in the grass marshes and shallow ponds of the course next door. “We especially like to look for balls on days after a tournament has been held when a lot of players were on the course,” Al noted.
Davos became so good at finding golf balls that he and Al started a little business.
Al put all the golf balls in a big garbage can behind his house. Using the honor system, he started selling them for 25 cents.
That went well, “until somebody stole the whole garbage can full of balls one night,” Al said. But, Davos quickly replenished their stock and Al learned to take better security measures by bringing the balls inside every night.
One night, Al noticed Davos would whine and whimper whenever ASPCA commercials depicting neglected animals would play on TV.
“That gave me the idea of donating the proceeds from golf balls found by Davos to the Humane Society in Golden Valley for the welfare of the animals,” Al explained.
“I called them up and Davos went along with me to donate $100 for 400 balls that we sold. We’ve been selling them during the past three years for golf-themed parties and added the money to the Humane Society collections.”
Davos gained local celebrity status when he appeared on a Kare 11 news story about his golfing exploits and quickly went viral.
“I think Davos is getting a bigger head on his shoulders,” Al commented. “He likes all the extreme attention.” Although Davos wasn’t a rescue dog, Al still thinks the term is apt: “He was a life saver for me emotionally when I was sick at home with cancer,” he said.
“Davos has a dog tag that reads: ‘I rescued my dad.'”
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