Porter and Hershel – Written by Wanda Bridgeman
I never thought adopting a rescue lab could be so fulfilling and we’ve been blessed to experience it two-fold. Since we had lost our precious chocolate lab, Kona, shortly after we became involved in Lowcountry Lab Rescue. We found another chocolate, Hershel, at the 2006 Charleston Dog Show, at which LLR had a booth. Hershel turned out to be a sweet, loving dog.
Hershel is the hunter as he has proven by catching a few squirrels in the yard and also catching and eating a frog which required a vet visit and meds. Hershel is just happy lying at his “guard post” on the stair landing.
Afterward I kept checking the website to keep up to date on LLR news and dog stories. I had my eye on a gorgeous black lab for some time and noticed his profile was getting longer, which made me think the foster family were anxious to get him adopted. We made an appointment to see him and saw that he was a giant puppy in a comfortable, loving home. It was impossible to not fall in love with him. I had never seen a dog that lived each moment with such vigor and curiosity.
We brought him home and it took a little time before our other lab, Hershel and he (Ramada, named after the hotel he was found at and soon to be re-named Porter) got adjusted to each other as Hershel was used to receiving all the attention and now had some competition.
Hershel was very shy and timid and a little nervous until Porter came along. Porter brought the personality out in Hershel and even got Hershel to play with toys which he didn’t do before Porter came along. When we leave the house for the day we gate Porter off to a small section of the house so he doesn’t destroy anything and while Hershel has full run of the house he chooses to lay on the opposite side of the gate of Porter so he can be close to him.
Porter, the puppy that he is, loves anything that moves or makes noise. Porter had a shoe fetish at first which he quickly overcame (thank goodness, due to the cost of replacing them). Once when we had taken our eyes off of him for a short while he found his way into a work bag and found a plastic container of vitamins and thought it was a toy. He got it open and when we found him the pills were nowhere to be found. I immediately called our vet and was instructed to induce vomiting with hydrogen peroxide, which I later found out wasn’t his first encounter with this method of treatment.
Now that things are settled and everyone is comfortable and adjusted, we all take two mile walks twice a day and run and play in the big back yard. When I get ready for work in the mornings he sits outside the shower and waits for me to do my hair and he likes me to blow dry his hair while I do mine. When we play and wrestle on the floor, he always manages to find a way to sit on one of us; it doesn’t matter if it’s on our lap or right on our heads! At the end of long, hard day at work or even an easy Sunday relaxing at home, he always finds a way to make us laugh or forget for a few minutes about the things that make life tough. He also has a sense which detects illness which he has pinpointed on me a few times and I never ignore anytime that he gives special attention to a certain part of my body that gets smelled or licked more than usual.
Porter is my nurse, companio, protector, comedian and very dear friend. Hershel is a gentle, sensitive dog with such strong emotion that tugs at your heart strings. |
