Olympian Caeleb Dressel Reveals How His Dog Jane Plays a Key Role in His Mental Health

Caeleb Dressel is a 10-time Olympic medalist (including nine golds) and happily married to his high school sweetheart, Meghan Dressel. In February 2024, the couple welcomed their first baby. Caeleb is also a devoted and enthusiastic dog dad to his black Labrador, Jane.

Read on to learn about how Jane helps Dressel with his mental health and why he compares being a dog dad to having a real life Pokémon.

ParadePets : How long have you had Jane for? Does she have any funny quirks or habits?

Jane is a Labrador. She’s a little runt – I purposely picked out the runt because through all the training books I read before I got Jane, like how to train her to be a bird dog and all this stuff, there was one little sentence that said, “Yeah, smaller dogs typically live longer,” so I picked out the runt of the litter, she’s a tiny little girl, but yeah. Had to be a black lab because my dad - that was his first dog, and I really wanted a girl. So yeah, Jane’s a black lab, I’ve had her since 2018, so that’s six years. Yeah, dang, Jane is six years old.

Like everyone’s dog, she does a million funny things, I don’t know if we have time in the interview here, but she does this thing called a bear run when she gets really tickled and has the zoomies. She’ll tuck her butt down to where it’s like an inch off the ground and she’ll just run around like that. We call it a bear run, we don’t know what it is. I guess this isn’t really Jane’s fault, but we have like a million nicknames for her, including “Donkey,” “Gerboinky,” “Princess” is obviously one, and then you’re not gonna get ‘em out of me in this interview, but there’s a bunch of different theme songs we have for Jane and Rems (Rems is the couple's cat) that is a lot of singing. So yeah, Jane has “Pretty Princess,” “The Donkey Song,” Rems has “The Titty Tat Song,” and then there’s one called “Mishwa” which is his alter ego when he’s misbehaving, we call him Mishwa. So yeah, that’s kind of just me and Meghan’s weird quirks with him, but she’s got a million.

ParadePets: How do you feel Jane provides you with support? How has she helped your mental health? Does she get to travel with you? Does she enjoy swimming?

I can’t really take (Jane) to swim meets just ‘cause she’d be cooped up in a hotel room, so she goes off to Mimi’s house, which is Meghan’s mom. And she has two other dogs there – two other labs as well – Meghan’s mom is on 10 acres, so they dog sit Jane. So, when I’m gone for a month and Meghan’s not home she has somewhere to go that’s really really fun for her. She has been to Georgia, she’s been to North Carolina, she’s hiked on the Appalachian Trail for a week – she had her little dog backpack and everything – so she’s definitely an adventurous girl. This winter we’re gonna try to go up north and get her to see snow during the house remodeling – we’re gonna have to get out of the house for a bit – so I think we’re just gonna travel. I really want Jane to see snow, I think it’s important for all dogs. I live in Florida, so she’s seen water and the beaches a million times, but I think she needs to see snow. I think that’s when the zoomies will really come out.

Does she love swimming – yeah, she turns into a different dog. Her training pretty much goes out the window when she sees the pool. I usually take her to the outdoor pool at UF (University of Florida), and she’ll swim for – well, I pretty much have to tell her when to stop, ‘cause I think she’ll go until her heart goes out. So, yeah, definitely addicted to the water and she’s a very, very good swimmer.
The biggest thing Jane’s done is that she doesn’t care about my swim career at all. She doesn’t know the accolades, she doesn’t care what place I got, she doesn’t know any of my times. She’s happy to see me whether I had a really good practice or a really bad practice. She was happy to see me after Tokyo, she was happy to see me after Paris. She was just happy ‘cause I was gone for a while, and she was wondering what the heck I was doing. But yeah, she doesn’t care, she doesn’t keep up with any of it, and I’ve said that’s what makes the best swim parents as well is the ones that don’t know what’s going on, they just support you no matter what, and I definitely have that with Jane. So yeah, she helps me keep things in perspective of it’s not as big a deal sometimes, and nobody cares at the end of the day. Some people care – I care – but it’s definitely a lot bigger deal in my mind than it is. Jane helps me remember that.

ParadePets: How do you feel Nulo supports Jane’s health? What made you want to partner with Nulo on the ‘Fuel Incredible’ campaign?

It was quite the interesting lead-up for Paris because Meghan was pregnant, and then I had my son, so I didn’t want to take on a whole lot of new partnerships. I said no to a lot of commitments, a lot of media requests – I was saying no a lot, which was very important for me and my family. So Nulo came along , and I was certainly interested because it was something that would come organic for me. I think that was the big things; in talking to my agent, I want something that’s going to be organic, and I want something that I can just easily attach to and actually want to be partnered with. After talking to the big dog at Nulo, Michael (Landa, CEO and Founder), it became very clear to me that this was much more than just a company selling pet food. This is a guy who owns the company and also has black labs and just loves pets. So that was something that I could easily relate to and something that I would love to be partnered with and try and help do my part of help spreading what Nulo’s actually about. Obviously, it’s about making really good fuel and food for not just my pets but pets across the world, so I wanted to be partnered with that. Like I said, I want Jane to live as long as she can, I purposely picked out the runt of the litter so I could get a couple extra days or years out of her. So yeah, I feel like Nulo’s gonna certainly do its part in helping me squeeze out as many years as I can out of Jane.

ParadePets: What’s one thing you wish people know before they take the step to adopt a dog or add a dog to their family?

Obviously having a dog is one of the greatest joys. I’m a big Pokémon fan, but it’s like real-life Pokémon. You just have this friend that follows you around all day, and they just love you to death, and you get to train them, and you get to find things that they enjoy and find their favorite toys and all this stuff. So, it’s been one of the greatest things ever, and Jane’s my first dog. I think one of the most important thing is making sure you have time for the dog is the biggest issue. Space for the dog – I really feel like those are the two things. You don’t have to just think about yourself, you have to think about the dog and what breed you get as well. I based the first house I bought around Jane because I wanted her to have space. There was actually a pond back there as well that was shallow enough – that’s where I taught her how to swim. I know not everyone has that luxury of basing their house purchase – they might already be in a house. But I’ve seen some families leave a dog in the crate all day, and that always makes me really sad, especially when it’s some breeds that need to run. Like myself – I’m literally like a Dalmatian, if I don’t get my heart rate up long enough throughout the day, I’ll bite you. I get mean. So, the dogs need to run as well. So yeah, I think just time and space, and it’s not a whole lot of time. For Jane’s training, I did 10 minutes twice a day to teach her the basic commands when she was a puppy, and then after 10 minutes it was all play. So yeah, time and space, it’s not just for yourself, it’s just for the dog.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Thank you so much to Caeleb for taking the time out to speak to us. If you'd like to follow Caeleb you can do so on his Instagram here . To learn more about Nulo pet nutrition, you can visit their website here .