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As the purple balloons lifted slowly into the sky at Smith Elementary School in Livermore last week, the children called out.
“Bye, Cabo!”
“Bye, Cabo!”
It was a celebration of life for recently departed Cabo Hewitt, a handsome yellow Labrador retriever who faithfully visited Michelle Holbrook’s classroom from noon to 12:30 p.m. every Tuesday for the last seven years under the auspices of Valley Humane Society’s therapy dog program.
“The kids fell in love with him, and he loved the whole school thing,” owner Frances Hewitt said. “He even stood in line with the kids every year to get his picture taken.”
After the school visit, Hewitt and Cabo would visit Quail Garden Assisted Living in downtown Livermore.
“In one day, he would touch the lives of young kids and then the lives of the elderly,” Hewitt noted.
Cabo also was happy to let students share books with him in reading programs at libraries in Pleasanton and Livermore; and he would don a red, white and blue bandana to welcome home military members. And he participated two years in Valley Humane Society’s Critter Camps for youngsters.
Frances and Don Hewitt moved to Pleasanton in 1998 with their black lab Bosco, who soon became a popular dog about town as he accompanied Frances on many of her duties with Pleasanton Downtown Association.
Seven years later, when Bosco was 9, the Hewitts returned to his birthplace, Three Sisters Labradors, in Oregon — an AKC Breeder of Merit — to adopt Cabo, who is Bosco’s great-nephew. They called their new dog after their favorite vacation spot, Cabo San Lucas, where they have been going since 1995, although his registered name is Ebonstar’s Cabo del Sol.
Both of the dogs did therapy work, Hewitt said, with Bosco’s mostly in Pleasanton before he died in 2009, and Cabo reaching out to Livermore as well.
She recalled Cabo working at Donlon Elementary years ago with special needs children.
“There was a little boy named Dylan who was so adorable,” she recalled. “He didn’t speak but he could hear. He was in a wheelchair. Every time we walked in the room his eyes would light up. He wanted to pretend Cabo was his dog so I gave him Cabo’s leash.”
They would just sit there together, Dylan happy to hold the leash and Cabo apparently pleased to be by his side.
Another young boy named Brandon was terrified of dogs.
“But after a month Cabo was his buddy,” Hewitt said. “He called him ‘Wobble,’ and they would walk out to the field and back.”
The Hewitts own two special cars — a 1917 Model T and a 1967 Ford Mustang — so the city of Pleasanton calls each year when it wants a classic ride for the mayor in the Veterans Day Parade on Main Street. While the mayor sat in the back seat to wave at the parade-goers, Don drove and Cabo would ride shotgun.
Cabo was also a hit with men from the Veterans Affairs hospital in Livermore he met at monthly luncheons at the Livermore Pleasanton Elks Lodge, where Hewitt is a member.
“Cabo earned enough hours (a minimum of 500) through Valley Humane Society that he was nationally recognized as a Distinguished Dog for the American Kennel Club,” Hewitt said. “He has a certificate, a medal, some patches.”
He had two different vests to wear to his volunteer jobs — a purple one for Valley Humane Society and a red American Kennel Club vest.
“When I would put his therapy vest on him, he knew it was all about me and human interaction would be involved. He would ignore Don,” Frances Hewitt said.
But he became Don’s dog when it was time to go pheasant hunting in Rio Vista.
“He was a different dog,” Frances Hewitt said. “When Don first took him out, he became stiff as a board and his right paw would come up. Cabo was a ‘pointing lab.'”
She said the breeder produces championship hunting dogs that also become amazing therapy dogs with “incredible dispositions.”
Last year, Cabo was diagnosed with a heart disease, then in February a cough turned out to be cancer in his left lung. Although he curtailed many of his activities, he still jumped up when Hewitt brought out the vest he wore to visit the school.
“He would still play ball with the kids,” Hewitt recalled.
But Cabo continued to decline and stopped eating. He died May 21 at the age of 12-1/2.
“I had more flowers and cards in my house — he really touched this community,” Hewitt said.
The celebration of life at Smith Elementary was good closure for the students, she added. Even without Cabo, she plans to continue visiting the school and the assisted living residents.
Now she is working on a scrapbook for Cabo and remembering all his special ways.
“He really touched this community,” she said. “There were so many heartfelt moments when I would watch him with a kid.”
For more pictures and information, visit Cabo’s website at www.cabohewitt.com.
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Students release balloons for Cabo at a celebration of his life at the elementary school he visited for seven years until he died last month. (Contributed photo) -
Cabo poses for his professional photo in a fundraiser for Valley Humane Society, where he volunteered in its pet therapy program. (Contributed photo) -
Cabo rests on the mosaic bench in Kottinger Bench. After the photo was taken, his owners saw that he had the wings of an angel. (Contributed photo) -
Cabo, a longtime canine volunteer and member of the Hewitt family in Pleasanton, died May 21 after a battle with cancer. Here, the yellow Labrador retriever is shown on a trip to the beach, leaving his footprints in the sand. (Contributed photo)
