Bay is obsessed with her orange ball.

“It’s her favorite thing in the world,” says Rob Krupicka about his family’s golden retriever-border collie mix. “She will carry it around and tell you when she wants you to throw it.”

I saw a bit of this in action as we stood on the Krupicka’s porch. Bay dropped the ball at Rob’s feet and then barked until Rob kicked the ball into the yard. Bay would run and chase it down and bring it back, and either drop it back at Rob’s feet or press it against his shin, asking to repeat the process again and again.

Rob, who has been a member of the Alexandria City Council for eight years, says he sometimes has to change his pants before council meetings because Bay gets them dirty with her ball.

Right now the trees and bushes in their yard are bare, but Rob says the game is even better when the ball gets lost. “It keeps her occupied for awhile,” he says, since Bay won’t rest until she finds the ball. When she is done playing she just won’t bring the ball back, though even at 10 years old the game’s end doesn’t seem to come too quickly.

Rob and his wife, Lisa, adopted Bay from a pound when she was a puppy, adding a dog to the family of two cats they already owned.

The first cat was tortoiseshell-colored and reminded them of the Old Bay Seasoning container, so they named her Chesa after the Chesapeake Bay. A few years later when Rob and Lisa adopted their second cat, they continued along that name path and called her Peake. So picking Bay’s name was pretty easy.

Bay hasn’t gotten into too much trouble over the years, though it’s possible that when Bay was 1 and ate an entire bottle of Tylenol that she caused enough trouble for a lifetime.

“It came very close to killing her,” says Rob.

They rushed Bay to the animal hospital and had her stomach pumped, but by then she had lost all liver function. After a few days at the vet’s office, he told them to bring Bay home and let her die peacefully there.

Only Bay kept on going and six months later Rob and Lisa returned to the vet and her liver function was back to normal.

This all happened when Lisa was pregnant with their first daughter. Now they have two daughters who have loved growing up with pets (though they recently lost Chesa, who lived to be 19). Bay walks to school with the girls every morning, and their youngest daughter now has dreams of becoming a veterinarian.

Bay also loves to swim, which seems appropriate given her name. The family will spend some time along the James River and Bay will swim in the in the water all day.

“Then we come home and she sleeps for three days,” says Rob.

Rob says a big part of living here is the neighborhood’s love of pets.

“It is an amazing affection for animals that we have in Alexandria. It really makes the community special,” Rob said as we stood on his porch enjoying a crisp Del Ray morning.

Then Bay barked, reminding Rob there was an orange ball at his feet waiting to be kicked.