Porter Comes Home

Porter Rests on For a Whole 3 Seconds

SO here I am with my new rescue dog. We bought everything we needed, loaded him up, and drove him home. We almost immediately realize he's a total psycho. My arms were covered in teeth marks before the first evening was over. Every time I tried to move or play, Porter would be like "Good idea-Imma play with my TEETH." At this point, I knew I was not Cesar Milan and was, in fact, over my head, but I couldn't admit it because I had thrown a HUGE FIT about adopting him and now I was stuck-like it or not.

The song taking the world by storm at that moment was "Baby Shark," and we made that Porter's new nickname due to his inability to do anything without involving his teeth.

Live Footage of Porter's 1st Year At Home

When we adopted Porter, his paper work said his name was "Charlie (aka Jake)." If we were experience rescuers, we would have realized that Porter already had two names and two names is a red flag, but we didn't think anything of it. Charlie is Chris's brother's name and, instead, we were like "It's a sign!" We like to name our pets after things we love or their core personality traits.

We decided that Charlie/Jake needed a new name for his new life and since he was black and brown, we named him after my favorite beer: Black Butte Porter (by Deschutes Brewery).

Yum Yum Yum-Deschutes Black Butte Porter

As we were getting the ducks were in a row- the name, the vet, the shots, the kibble- we were also starting to get a fuller picture of just what we were getting ourselves into.

We knew that Porter was 1-year-old and that due to his age, his was going to be crazy, in general, until he hit 2 or 3. Doggy adolescence is an actual thing that starts when the pup hits about 6 months and goes until the dog is 2 or 3, depending on their temperament, size, breed, etc. Think of teenage adolescence (fits/fighting boundaries/big feelings/telling the rules to "fuck off), put that into doggy form, and there you go. Porter would drag me around the block, lunge and bark at other dogs, rip my gloves off my hands, mouth our arms and legs during play time or whenever he was bored, wake me up at the crack by sticking is tongue in my mouth or biting my hair, chew through multiple collars a week, chew through beds, chew through leashes, chase foxes through the neighborhood, run down the street and bark at neighbors, snap at strangers, nip the pant legs of strangers, nip the fingers of strangers, totally lose his shit on the Amazon man, and the list goes on.

One time, before our 5:15 am morning walk, my husband said "He's a good boy-he doesn't need to have his leash on." OK-so I didn't put his leash on and opened the front door: sure enough, there was a fox right there, so Porter ran straight out the door, down the road, across the street, and up a neighbor's hill before we got ahold of him. We never did that again.

Another time I dragged Porter to the Petsmart I adopted him from for one of our "socialization outings" and woman who worked there saw him and said "Oh my God-He looks just like Charlie. I adopted a dog named Charlie from here but he ate through my wall, my floor, my subfloor, and a mattress and I had to return him." It wasn't until I went to bed that night that I realized "Charlie!!!! Charlie WAS PORTER'S FIRST NAME!!" and I had accidentally met one of Porter's first mom's.

Another time, I had already walked Porter a few miles in the morning and couldn't get him to calm down. I took him into the yard to run around but since our yard was not fenced yet, I had him on a very long lead. He saw our neighbor getting her paper and started running down the hill. I slipped in mud while he was pulling and get dragged through it. He got free, ran down the street and barked at my neighbor until she went back into her house. I apologized but obviously my neighbor was not happy having some dog that she didn't know well bark at her while she was minding her own business on her own property.

I cried myself to sleep sometimes because I had never had a dog like this. I didn't know what he was capable of, good or bad, and I didn't want my dog to hurt or scare people. I had, in fact, hoped to train him to be a therapy dog and to take him to breweries and hiking and camping...those plans were obviously way, way, way, way, way, waaaaaaaaay out the window. I looked ahead and saw only 14 years of lonely, scary, mean-dog ownership.

Baby Porter During the Dark Times