At about 18 months old, young Diesel is still just an overgrown pup with a lifetime of love to give and grand plans for exploring the big wide world with his new dad, Richard, one wonderful day at a time. Diesel won the Lab lottery with his fantastic new dad, whose approach to four-legged fatherhood includes extra helpings of patience, understanding, good humor, and, most of all, love.
Richard tells their story: “For the Love of Diesel” The day that I met Diesel, he won my heart in a matter of moments, and I knew he would be coming home with me. After completing the paperwork for the adoption, we went for a walk before jumping in the car for the 1 hour ride north from Denver to Wellington. When we arrived at home, Diesel did as I expected and ran through the house to check out every room. When he was done, he raced into the master bedroom, jumped up on the bed without worrying about permission, spun around and looked at me with a huge smile, his tail wagging non-stop, and a look in his eyes that seemed to say “this is great, where are you going to sleep?” He then extended his front legs around my neck, drew me in close in a dog version of a bear hug, and proceeded to lick my face with sloppy doggie kisses until I had to finally had to push him away to get him to stop the love fest.
Every night since his first night in the house, after I crawl into bed, he has jumped up on the bed to give me goodnight kisses and to have his belly rubbed. Then, when he has had enough, he goes to the end of the bed to sleep, until the alarm clock sounds in the morning, then he starts the kissing routine again to get me up. Luckily, I am OK with dog slobber; hopefully, it is good for the complexion.
I had Diesel stay in a dog cage during his first week in the house while I was at work, but he is so respectful of everything in the house, that we put the cage away after that and since then, he has had free roam of the house and yard (via a dog-door I installed). Being a lab, he loves to chew on things when he is bored, so as long as I do my part and keep temptation out of his view, he is a perfect gentleman when he is alone in the house. He fully respects the furniture, after all, he knows it is his (and he is kind enough to allow me to use it), and he has never shown any interest in chewing cables or blankets or anything else like that. However, shoes, anything paper or plastic bags are a different story, so I have been good about removing those from site – other than the one pair of leather shoes I mistakenly left out, which seemed to have provided hours of fun and may have been worth the cost of the shoes just for the sheer delight he had in destroying them. After just a month, we have settled in as inseparable pals; I can’t wait to see how this continues to evolve as time passes.
THANK YOU for providing the opportunity for us to have met. Diesel and I owe everyone at Safe Harbor Lab Rescue an eternal debt of gratitude. When I am comfortable that Diesel is 100% secure that we will never be separated, we will start looking for lab #2 so he has someone to keep him company when I cannot be home.