PO‘IPU — Just outside the backdoor leading to the oceanfront home of Greg Schredder, on a Thursday morning, is a chocolate lab. The 12-year-old that goes by the name of Amia rests on her side as she glances up with
PO‘IPU — Just outside the backdoor leading to the oceanfront home of Greg Schredder, on a Thursday morning, is a chocolate lab.
The 12-year-old that goes by the name of Amia rests on her side as she glances up with kind, brown eyes at a visitor. No bark. No growl. Her tail wags and she lifts her head slightly as if to say, “Hey, come over here and pet me.”
So, of course, that’s what you do.
Schredder, Amia’s owner, wanders outside to check on her. She hasn’t quite been the same since her longtime friend and canine companion, Kasi, died last month.
“You ready for a walk?” Schredder asks.
The 90-pound lab slowly rises, and ambles down the driveway with Schredder. She’s overweight, but good to go for short strolls.
Amia, Schredder said, lost her spark when 15-year-old Kasi died March 12. She sits, some days, and stares. He believes she’s looking for Kasi.
“They were a team,” he said. “They were always together.”
They are, if you will, a legend at Kukui‘ula Harbor, a short walk from Schredder’s home on the South Shore. For years, they wandered house to house, barbecue to barbecue, pool to pool. Neighbors weren’t surprised to come out of the shower and find two labs sleeping on the floor.
Anglers at the harbor knew two things: They would catch fish, sure, and they would have company in the form of two friendly labs. Tourists are said to have visited the harbor in search of these two famous chocolate labs they’d heard so much about.
“They kind of ran the Kukui‘ula Harbor there, you know that,” said Maria Capri, who knew the dogs for a decade.
There are stories of the two becoming restless when sitting and waiting for Schredder, so they jumped out of the truck, miles from home, and found their way back.
Locals sometimes saw them as they walked the shoulder of the highway, usually picked them up and delivered them to Amio Road.
It wasn’t uncommon for a police car to arrive at the Schredder home, stop, open a door, and let two labs out.
They were always on the prowl for food, and everyone fed them on their travels. The two often returned home weighing more than when they left.
“They’d come back looking like stuffed balloons,” he said, laughing.
His phone number was on their collars, and the calls would come.
“We have your dogs,” someone would say.
Schredder would relay, “I’ll be right over.”
“Wait for an hour,” the caller would say, “We’re having a great visit. These dogs are characters.”
Judy Neale, a neighbor, has many, many stories to tell of Kasi and Amia, all good.
She recalls them often visiting her home and bringing with them a warm feeling.
“They’d sit down and watch the ocean with you,” she said.
The two were inseparable since Neale met them 11 years ago when they scaled the seawall onto her property.
Who, she wondered, were these two dogs?
She would find out. Kasi loved to lay down on Neale’s foot.
“They were so sweet and playful and just run around like little maniacs,” she said, laughing. “They’d kind of make the rounds.”
That they did, Schredder said.
It caused him a bit of grief, including trouble with the police. There were fines when the dogs were caught off leash. There were trips to court.
Once, during their adventures to a neighbor’s, they ate two rare pipes with an estimated value of nearly $50,000. It took a bit of negotiating and an insurance claim to settle that one.
Schredder, an international business developer, never got mad, though. He couldn’t. And he couldn’t bring himself to keep them tied up. The dogs had the run of the place when fewer folks lived there. It was their turf, and in their travels, they said aloha to fishermen, surfers, visitors, politicians and children.
There was a price for their freedom. He paid it.
“Everybody knows them on this island,” he said. “They were really part of the community.”
Kasi’s death, he said, leaves a gap in the community and the Schredder home. She was, he says simply, his best friend that saw him through the death of his wife, his son leaving the island and lifestyle changes. He misses her on the morning walks he still takes with Amia. He misses her when she would sit next to him at night.
“That dog was loved,” he said.
Schredder recalls swimming in the harbor, sometimes going beyond the breakwater.
“She’d be watching and she’d be worried, and she’d swim out to be sure I was OK,” he said.
He laughed as he told of a story of once feeling something nudge him as he swam, and he feared it was a shark. He turned, frantic, to see Kasi happily paddling next to him.
“I’d hold her tail and she would pull me in,” he said.
The 70-pound lab was sweet, dignified, elegant and loving, a real lady (except she loved to chase chickens), he says, calling her an ideal dog.
“She was a family member if ever there was family member,” he said. “That dog was the love of this neighborhood.”
Schredder bought twin pups, Kasi and Sachi, from a breeder in Kapa‘a 15 years ago. Sachi was killed four years later when she was struck by a vehicle.
Kasi went into a depression until Schredder got another pup, Amia, who pestered Kasi back to life.
Each had its own personality. Kasi was verbal. Amia, quiet. Kasi led, Amia followed. Both loved to explore, which they did with great enthusiasm.
“I’ll tell you, they brought a lot of joy and a lot of love to a lot of people,” he said.
People like Betsy Ramey.
She recounted a time they went to dinner and when they returned to the truck, Kasi and Amia were gone. They drove around 45 minutes, searching, and couldn’t find them. They returned to the restaurant, finally and found the dogs hanging out in the kitchen with the cook.
Of course.
“That’s where they were the whole time,” she said.
She knew the dogs sometimes cost Schredder a bit of financial trouble and heartache — but they were worth it.
“Those were probably the most expensive dogs on the island,” she said.
Ronnie Ching-Pacheco has fished at Kukui‘ula Harbor for years. Kasi and Amia usually sat down next to her, and just watched.
If she got up to walk to the car or restroom, they followed.
“We were friends forever,” she said. “They were very loving, caring, really friendly dogs.”
Kasi’s death, she said, was tough.
“Those dogs were like our own dogs,” she said.
Schredder doesn’t plan to adopt any more dogs. He owned and loved two yellow labs for 15 years before Kasi and Amia. It’s hard when they die.
He takes comfort, though, in knowing the joy they brought not just his life, but others.
Kasi, he said, led more than a dog’s life. Much more.
“I don’t know what heaven’s like,” Schredder said. “But I don’t know how much better it could be than the life she had here.”
• Bill Buley, editor-in-chief, can be reached at 245-0457 or bbuley@thegardenisland.com.
