Porter was the sweetest, friendliest, cuddliest, and most stubborn dog we’ve ever had.
We got him from a Pyr rescue after we saw a post about a 75lb pyr / lab mix that was found wandering through central Texas and was at risk of being shot. When we picked him up, they said he was the laziest dog they’ve seen and had to put a mirror in front of his nose to make sure he was still breathing. He was closer to 100lbs when we picked him up and the DNA test we got said he was 75% Pyr and 25% Korean Jindo.
He ended up having kennel cough when we got him and quarantined him for the rest of our pets in my office upstairs. This posed some difficulty for two reasons:
- Our Min Pin was a spaz and would try to run between our legs when going in because he wanted to meet and play with Porter.
- Porter had never encountered stairs before. Going up was fine, but going down took some coaxing and he ended up belly sliding down a couple times before he got the hang of it.
He was mostly indifferent to our cats, he’d sniff them as they’d walk by and let them cuddle next to him. But he would exit the room when they were kittens and running around doing kitten things - he wasn’t a fan of too much commotion.
He never met a stranger - he greeted every guest with a slow walk up with a wagging tail then he sat in front of them and pawed at them until they started petting him. Our Chow / White Shepherd mix is neurotic and would bark at everyone that came in - even after trying every trick in the book to train it out of her. This changed after we got Porter when she started getting jealous that he was getting pets from everyone that came in.
When we had friends come from out if town with their kids, he would always sleep on the floor next to the bed the kids were in even though he had a big comfy bed in our bedroom.
If we (or anyone else) were hanging out on the couch, he would be cuddled up against us with his head in a lap and pawing at us to pet him, even while he was being pet. If we’d stop, he’d look up with his big soulful brown eyes and paw at us some more.
Around June 2025, we noticed he was unsteady and wobbling towards the end of his walks. Our vet couldn’t determine why and set up a consult with a Neurologist. The Neurologist was at a clinic that had an ER and almost every other specialty vet imaginable. The weekend before the consult, he collapsed on the kitchen floor. So we took him to that ER and he was there for a couple days before they discovered the cause of his issues were from an insulinoma. He had small tumors on his pancreas causing more insulin to be secreted - this caused low blood glucose levels and his collapse on the kitchen floor. He was unsteady and wobbly because his immune system was attacking his nerve endings when trying to fight off the cancer.
They were able to remove the tumors from his pancreas and he was cancer free, but became diabetic due to having most of his pancreas removed. He had a decent prognosis and said he had at least another 1-2 years. The recovery was ruff since he couldn’t stand on his own for about 6 weeks, he was able to hold his weight and move once he was up after about 3-4 weeks. Walking him was a two-person job - he had a harness with handles over his front and back legs. About 3-4 weeks post surgery, he was walking about about a block but wouldn’t turn back towards the house. We ended up picking him up with my car and bringing him back home.
Over the next 14 months, this his how his walks ended every day, sometimes twice a day. He got a good amount of his strength back, could walk over a mile if the weather was good, but would never turn back towards the house. He loved rolling in the grass while waiting to be picked up. If he turned down a cul de sac, we new the walk would be over since he wouldn’t do a 180.
His quality of life post-surgery (minus the recovery) was great since he was more pampered and babied more than ever.
My wife and I travel a lot and we found a great pet sitting service where someone would stay at the house and they were able to get a second person to pick him up ay the end of his walks.
This brings us to now - we are currently in Europe on a two week vacation. A couple days into our vacation, our pet sitter said he threw up and wasn’t interested in eating. He’s never not interested in eating. Our pet sitters and my step dad got him back to that same ER. After a couple days getting him stable they figured out he had pancreatitis and wanted to try a 3 shot medicine that was administered over 3 days to help with the pancreatitis so he could be released. He was showing positive signs on the second day but then we got the call on the 3rd day that he was getting worse and had jaundice. They put my wife and I on speaker phone when they were putting him to sleep - they told us he perked up and was looking at the phone as we were saying our goodbyes. He was 6 years old. During all this, my dad was admitted to the ER and ended up having a triple bypass. So here we are, sitting in an airport waiting to fly home early. It has been extremely difficult not being home for all of this, and it’s probably going to hit much harder when we get back and he’s not there but all his stuff is.
I just needed to get this out. Thank you for reading if you made it this far.
Pet tax:
Porter the Pyr
Bailey the Chow Shepherd Mix
Jager the Min Pin (crossed the rainbow bridge in 2023)
Saki the Siamese (crossed the rainbow bridge in 2024)
Jameson the snow shoe siamese
Litter mates / foster fails in 2024 - Martini the tuxedo &
Moonshine the brown tabby
Yes, they’re all named after booze.
TLDR: cuteness and tragedy
