Meet Jeb Burton’s Black Lab Teal

BY JARED TURNER

Aself-described dog lover for most of his life, NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Jeb Burton is now the owner of a 50-pound black Labrador retriever named Teal who will soon be 2 years old.

Burton and his wife, Brandi, bought the canine in their hometown of Halifax, Virginia, with the intention of training her to help them hunt duck.

“She’s wide open, that’s for sure,” Jeb Burton said. “She still needs some more work to be a really, really good duck dog. But I think she’s going to be all right. She’s really just a pet right now.”

Teal – named after the teal duck species – is the third Lab that Burton remembers being in his family.

“I had a black Lab when I was 8 years old, and I got a yellow Lab when I was about 14,” said Burton, the 29-year-old son of retired NASCAR Cup Series driver and 2002 Daytona 500 winner Ward Burton. “I’ve had a Lab in my life ever since I was young.” Although still young in dog years, Teal is fully developed. It’s just going to take some more time to get her fully prepared for duck hunting, and Burton is perfectly fine with that.

“She needs to calm down a little bit, and she’ll be what she needs to be,” he said. “She’s just a puppy, so she’s all underfoot.”

motorsports broadcaster Bob Jenkins died Aug. 9 at age 73 after a valiant fight with cancer.

Jenkins was one of the first on-air employees of ESPN when it launched in 1979. For more than 20 years, he was the lead voice of NASCAR races for ESPN and occasionally ABC, including the first seven Brickyard 400s at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. His pairing with former stock car drivers Ned Jarrett and Benny Parsons became one of the most popular trios in motorsports broadcasting history.