On December 28, 2010 we lost one of our beloved chocolate labs, Hamilton. He was 13 1/2 years old. He fell one day going out the door and broke his leg in such a way that the vet could not fix it. We had to make the painful decision to put him to sleep that day. It was one of the hardest decisions we ever had to make and we cried for hours before, during and after. We had him cremated and have his ashes in a special spot at home and maybe some day we will spread them on our property on one of his favorite spots, but not just yet. We are not quite ready for that.
Hamilton had a buddy named Abigail, another chocolate lab, who is almost 11 years old now. She missed her buddy very much and was very lethargic and sad looking. We decided we would eventually get another dog, and had a few offers from people who wanted us to take their dog for them, (not labs) but it just didn’t feel right. We also put feelers out to our local SPCA where we had originally gotten Abigail, to let us know if and when they got a lab there, and lo and behold, they called us to tell us that they had a pure blooded chocolate lab puppy. They thought he was between 7 and 10 months old. We went to visit him and he was just beautiful and very energetic. He didn’t pay any attention to us at all, but we were pretty sure we would take him. We took Abigail into meet him and she didn’t exactly jump for joy, but also didn’t completely reject him, so we made the decision to adopt him.
This was one of the best decisions we could make. He is just absolutely the greatest. He is very smart and we only had to leave him in his crate for one night and since them he has only been in the crate for a hour or so when we left them at home for a couple of hours. He and Abigail travel with us every day in our work. We have jobs that allows us to each take one of the dogs with us during the day and have both of them with us at the office at night. (we own the business and building so we can have them with us). Riley (the name we gave him) and Abigail are inseparable now. Riley doesn’t like her out of his sight or his new parents either. We live in the country and have many acres and he is just in heaven when he can be outside and just run to his heart’s content and chase his frisbie. I have attached a picture of Riley and Abigail in the back seat of our SUV where they were taking a nap, and as you can see, he likes to be very close to her. Though we miss Hamilton daily, this little fellow is filling the gap he left when we had to put him to sleep. He even reminds us of Hamilton as he has many of his traits. We hope we have him many years and that we have Abigail for as many years as is possible, too.

— Linda from Jersey Shore, PA