Bicentennial Man Inspired Dog Names

In the movie Bicentennial Man, the robot Andrew Martin is purchased by Robert Martin, a wealthy man who discovers that Andrew is exceptional when he begins to create art in the form of wood carvings. The first time that Andrew creates, he does so in response to accidentally breaking a treasured glass horse that belongs to Robert’s youngest daughter, carving a replacement from driftwood. A little over a decade later, Andrew sets out on a journey to find others like him. Although he is ultimately unsuccessful in locating other robots that have the capacity to feel, the way that he does, Andrew is eventually able to experience what it is like to have long-lasting romantic love with Portia, Amanda’s grand-daughter. Andrew goes to extraordinary lengths to extend Portia’s life and to create a more human experience for himself, ultimately to his own death.

In Valdora, a suburb in Queensland, Australia, a ten-year-old Dachshund who shares Portia’s name had her own extraordinary brush with death. The little dog was in the backyard of Kathy Hamer, who was watching Portia for her father-in-law when she suddenly fell to the grass and started seizing. Kathy immediately scooped Portia up and drove her to the nearest veterinarian, in the nearby town of Brisbane. By the time that they reached the veterinarian, the dog had stopped breathing, her eyes were fully dilated, and her tongue was blue. The dog was essentially dead, but Ms. Hamer and the veterinarian, Dr. Capps, just couldn’t give up. Ms. Hamer gave the dog CPR to keep oxygen circulating throughout her system until she got there, and when they arrived at the clinic, Dr. Capps administered a dose of adrenaline straight to the small dog’s heart to start it beating again. When Dr. Capps realized that the dog’s blood wasn’t clotting properly, he correctly surmised that Portia had been bitten by a snake and began antivenin treatment. She was given antibiotics and drug therapy to counteract the toxins, and for eighteen hours she was kept breathing with manual ventilation, and then remained on oxygen for another four days. Dr. Capps stated that Portia might have been bitten some time ago, as she had exhibited odd behavior and had been taken into the veterinarian for an examination just the day before, but the symptoms were mild enough that the doctor concluded that it was a just an upset stomach, but that every snakebite is different. If your dog is bitten by a poisonous snake, or shows signs of being bitten, keep your dog as calm as possible to slow the spread of the venom through the bloodstream and get them to the nearest veterinarian as soon as possible.