Robert Meyer’s 12-year-old bulldog has good reason to believe his owner is unfaithful. Meyer has a new four-legged friend that entertains crowds at UC Davis football games by retrieving the tee after Meyer kicks off. Cori returns the tee to Meyer on the sideline and gets a treat from the sophomore. 

Meyer’s first kickoff at UC Davis Health Stadium was on Sept. 19 to start the Aggies’ 45-7 victory over Stetson. After kicking the ball into the end zone for a touchback, Meyer was on his way to fetching the tee as he did at Colfax High when he noticed Cori was already hightailing it to midfield.

Cori retrieved the tee four times in the first half of the Aggies’ 33-6 victory over Northern Colorado on Saturday. She missed the second half because her trainer, Lisa Tell, wanted to attend the 35th reunion of her UC Davis veterinary school class. Tell is now a Distinguished Professor in the school. 

Tell adopted Cori when the Labrador retriever was a year old and had “washed out” of the field trial program to become a guide dog for the blind. UC Davis previously had a tee-retrieving dog in Pint, who retired in 2022 after more than 10 years of fetching tees. Cori has followed in Pint’s paw-steps.

This is Cori’s fifth season with the football team and she has been retrieving bats for the UC Davis baseball for six years. Retrieving a tee has been more of a challenge for Cori because Meyer uses a green tee and dogs cannot see green, especially when Meyer places his tee on green synthetic turf.

Tell has put yellow tape on the tee to make it easy for Cori to find it. And once she does, she returns it to Meyer instead of Tell. This is the first season in which Cori does not bring the tee to Tell and Cori “was a little confused at first.” Tell credits Meyer for assisting Cori because he is “so engaged in it.”

“He is the first kicker to get down on a knee for Cori,” Tell added. “Dogs are always looking up at you and she can’t see his face because of the helmet. (Meyer) gets down to her level and pulls his helmet back so she can see his face.” Cori can also see Meyer has treats in his hand to offer to her.

High school was the last time Meyer was responsible for kickoffs along with field goals and extra-point attempts. He was a preferred walk-on at Missouri in 2025 and expected to spend the season on the sideline until kicker Blake Craig sustained a season-ending knee injury in the Tigers’ opener. 

Meyer made his debut in the third quarter against Central Arkansas on Aug. 28 by kicking the extra point after a 99-yard touchdown drive in Missouri’s 61-6 win. He made his first two field goals against Kansas on Sept. 6, went 3-for-3 against South Carolina on Sept. 20 and finished 10-for-14.

Craig’s return this season meant little work for Meyer, however, and remaining at Missouri without a scholarship made little sense. Meyer yearned to come home to be reunited with Chubbs, who was named after the golfer played by Carl Weathers in “Happy Gilmore,” and play in front of his family.

UC Davis made that possible. The Aggies needed a kicker after Hunter Ridley graduated and new special teams coordinator Cody vonAppen wasted no time in finding one by reaching out to Meyer. “He said I was the first guy on his list,” Meyer recalled. “I’m so beyond blessed. It’s pretty surreal.”

Meyer made both of his field-goal attempts Saturday and is 6-for-9 this season. He has had two field-goal attempts in four games and missed one in each of the first three. Meyer made three of four extra-point kicks Saturday, missing his last attempt after UC Davis scored a touchdown with 7:22 to play.

Cori was gone when UC Davis kicked off three times in the second half Saturday. Daniel Amoako handled the last two that were his first two this season. Cori will get a break on Halloween because UC Davis will be at Weber State and then return to work Nov. 7 when the Aggies host Utah Tech.