Scooter:My Hero
-By Carla

Scooter is a 10 year old yellow Labrador Retriever. He is full blooded but not registered. We have had him since he was a puppy of 8 weeks. He can put his paws on my chest and look me in the eye. He is huge, but he is a big baby. That's the great thing about Labradors. They are big animals and make good watch dogs because of their size, but they are one of the friendliest breeds of dogs there is. They are excellent with children. Many of our friends have labradors and not one of them is a mean dog.

Scooter loves to swim. Labradors have webbed feet for swimming. He can jump in the pond and his head won't go under. He starts paddling as soon as he hits the water and can swim extremely well. As his name suggests, he was born to retrieve. You can throw anything and he will fetch it and bring it back to you. This is an inherent instinct in labradors. Some are better at it than others, but I have never seen a lab who would not fetch instinctively.

Scooter is getting grey hair now. He is 70 in people years, but you would never be able to tell it. He still can run and swim as well as when he was younger.

Scooter loves the 4-wheeler. When Larry starts it up, Scooter throws a fit to run with him. He runs right along side the 4-wheeler with Larry. He also likes to ride in the back of Larry's truck. He will jump in and you have a hard time getting him out. He loves to go for a ride anywhere.

I have a great story to tell about Scooter. When Larry was away one weekend fishing a bass tournament, a stray dog kept coming onto our property. I tried to chase it away and it would bark and show its teeth to me, which is never a good sign. I was kinda scared of it, which normally I am not at all afraid of any dog. One evening I was feeding our dogs. I was in Jug's pen feeding him when this stray dog came up. I locked myself in the pen and he walked closer, growling and showing his teeth. I could see the hair standing up on the back of his neck. I yelled at him until he took off across the field.

When I thought he had gone, I let myself out of Jug's pen and started over to Scooter. Scotter is not in a pen. As I was halfway between Jug and Scooter, this stray dog came running out of the field towards me. It scared me to death.

I ran to Scooter and stood in front of his house. I thought if I had to I could get inside Scooter's house. Scooter has a pretty good sized house as Scooter is a big dog. I waited a few seconds to see what he would do and tried to think what to do next. I decided it was too far for me to run to the house. I didn't know if I could out-run this stray dog to make it. I think Scooter caught on to what was happening around him. When the stray dog came closer to Scooter, Scooter ran after him barking and throwing a fit. The stray dog growled at Scooter and Scooter growled back. (Then I got scared for Scooter that the stray would attack him.)

Scooter looked around at me. The stray dog circled around and Scooter circled too, staying right between me and the stray dog. The stray dog kept circling around and circling around trying to find a way to get to me and Scooter kept circling right with him and barking at him. The whole time Scooter kept looking back at me, I think to make sure I was okay. (It still gives me goosebumps to tell this story.) Finally, the stray dog gave up and took off across the field.

To this day I believe that Scooter was protecting me and kept me from getting bitten. He may have even saved me from being hurt very badly. I just LOVE Scooter and you know why. He is my hero.