Fuzzbot Wingfield

by Maria on April 16, 2014

E and I are acquiring a hairy baby this weekend. We can’t agree on a name. He is against human names, except for when he isn’t. I tend towards cute ones that will be embarrassing to call out in a south London park. We’re not allowed to get pretentious ones after writers and such. Suggestions?

Fuzzbot Wingfield

Here’s what I have so far:

Bo

Milo (this has 3 ticks, one from me + 2 sisters)

Buzz

Bosco (two ticks.)

Grover (I love this one but E keeps saying we can’t call our dog after a tax dodger. There were no muppets in his prep school childhood.)

Boxy (after the dog in the original Battlestar Galactica)

Sprocket (after the dog in, I think, Fraggle Rock)

Hobbes (after the cartoon character, not the political philosopher)

Jaffa (city or biscuit)

Ajax (possibly too pretentious, but more likely to be associated with washing powder)

Max (dull name I threw as a sop to E. Now he counters EVERY suggestion with ‘how about Max?’)

Morris (my favourite, but better suited to a terrior with a grumpy old man personality)

Maurice (we are likely to brush its hair quite often)

Boney (after the first ever Farrell family dog)

Timmy

Monkey

Bubbles (after Michael Jackson’s chimpanzee, also a pet name for E)

Cracker (the dog is very white)

FYI the dog is a Samoyed, because my mum has one. We all love that dog so much it’s gotten to the point where most of my sisters now ask ‘how is Sweetie?’ before we inquire about our Dad.

{ 108 comments }

1

t.gracchus 04.16.14 at 8:46 am

As you will be yelling the name, I suggest Stella.

2

reason 04.16.14 at 8:48 am

t.gracchus @1 – I take the dog is male.

If the dog is very white, why not call it gop?

3

Maria 04.16.14 at 8:49 am

You know, I really love that name! (though my main association of it is in a Greg Bear novel – Darwin’s Radio, I think – for a super-baby called Stella Nova) Anyway, the beast is a boy.

4

Niall McAuley 04.16.14 at 8:56 am

I want to call our next dog Vijay. It’s short for Vile Jelly.

5

Maria 04.16.14 at 8:57 am

Superb name. Out, vile jelly!!!

6

Maria 04.16.14 at 8:58 am

reason, or indeed goop? I also considered gringo, on this basis.

7

Ronan(rf) 04.16.14 at 9:14 am

Fuzzbot Wingfield ? I’d go with that.
Or, cloud demon ? (I don’t really know, I’m not great on dogs name picking)

Would it be rude to post a picture of our family dog?

Ah, f**k it

http://ronanfitz.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/a-dog/

8

Chris Bertram 04.16.14 at 10:10 am

Sputnik …. that would make the Russian connection to the breed.

9

Margi 04.16.14 at 10:12 am

Given who your new friend will grow up to be … ‘cloud demon’ sounds very fitting!

You could call the pup ‘belyy’ … which is ‘white’ in Russian (I think)!
Or … perhaps ‘Umka’ which is polar bear in Chukchi. Polar bear in Inuit is ‘Nanoq’ and in Yupik it is ‘Nanuuk’

Or maybe simply ‘Sami’

10

chris y 04.16.14 at 10:13 am

Idéfix?

11

ffrancis 04.16.14 at 10:15 am

Our late, much-missed pure white dog was named Spot.

12

Niall McAuley 04.16.14 at 10:29 am

Out, damned spot! Out, I say!

13

Main Street Muse 04.16.14 at 10:37 am

If not Stella, then Stanley… white tee-shirt and all.

14

Main Street Muse 04.16.14 at 10:38 am

[But please, not Bubbles!]

15

Sasha Clarkson 04.16.14 at 10:51 am

Well, like Chris I thought a Russian name might be appropriate: Sputnik is inspired! :)

I was wondering about Grozny (the Dread), after Ivan Grozny (known to us as the Terrible). I remember the canary in Dr Zhivago with the very formal name and patronymic of Kiril Modestovich. Perhaps the dog could have a formal name and a diminutive, like Ivan Grozny, but Vanya for short?

16

Maria 04.16.14 at 11:06 am

So many great names. Especially the Russian and Inuit ones. If it had been a girl, Laikha was definitely in the top three.

OK fine, MSM. Fine! One Bubbles in the house is enough.

Ronan, I love your pictures and your dog looks like a very noble hound.

ffrancis, that’s such a sweet name for an all-white. It is crazy how much we love and miss these creatures – a decade or so of hostage to fortune and then gone.

17

MPAVictoria 04.16.14 at 11:09 am

Ridiculously cute Maria. I also really like people names for animals. Hence my having a pug named Stella, a cat name Henry, a fish named Phil and a snail named Theodore.

How about Winston?

/My dad always wanted to name a dog Askim. As in “What’s his name?” “Askim…”

18

Sasha Clarkson 04.16.14 at 11:28 am

One last thought, probably impractical because of pronouncability: Knyaz – Russian for Prince? :)

19

Ciarán 04.16.14 at 11:39 am

At the risk of lowering the tone, but in keeping with the Russian theme, why not Fido Dogstoyevsky?

20

max 04.16.14 at 11:47 am

Bo

Ah. Back when I was quite young (5-6) we wound up taking care of a white Samoyed (I think, he was all white either way). One night after we home, my step-dad unlocked the door and Bo came piling through. My step-dad step aside, and since Bo standing on his back legs was taller than I was, tackled me and tried to eat my face. Because he was like that and he’d been left at home all night. I still have a very small (because I was child-sized) scar on the side of my nose close to one eye. So. I vote no. (Also, Bo: Dukes of Hazzard.)

Bosco (two ticks.)

“Bosco, Bosco, why’d you burn down the house? And Bosco said, ‘The house was laughing at me.’ No, nonono, Bosco, the house wasn’t laughing at you, it was laughing with you.”

OTOH, maybe ‘Boskone’.

Max (dull name I threw as a sop to E. Now he counters EVERY suggestion with ‘how about Max?’)

Please, dear God, no. Every dog in the world appears to be named Max at this point, and this is beginning to get on max’s nerves.

Jaffa (city or biscuit)

Emmenthal. Gouda. Brie. Cheesy enough?

Hobbes (after the cartoon character, not the political philosopher)

OK, now we’re getting serious. Calvin! Milo (the cartoon character). Hodge-Podge.

Akbar (after Life in Hell but also the Mughal prince). Which my brain naturally follows to Saladin. But if we’re doing Ajax references, how about Argos?

Or you could try Hachikō. Even if Hachikō was an Akita.

max
[‘Enough.’]

21

Barry Freed 04.16.14 at 11:56 am

I tend towards cute ones that will be embarrassing to call out in a south London park.

Fenton is a classic. None more embarrassing.

22

Ronan(rf) 04.16.14 at 12:11 pm

““Bosco, Bosco, why’d you burn down the house? And Bosco said, ‘The house was laughing at me.’ No, nonono, Bosco, the house wasn’t laughing at you, it was laughing with you.”

That reminds me of a friend of a friend from back in the day who was (nick) named after the terrifying, red haired, Irish TV puppet Bosco because ‘you’d never know where he’d pop up.’
Which doesnt really make any sense, retrospectively.

23

rea 04.16.14 at 12:15 pm

Obviously a Spike or a Fang.

24

Barry 04.16.14 at 12:19 pm

Chew Toy?

Cuddles?

Bubbles?

Basically, any name which might be used for a dog carried around in a purse.

25

Ben Alpers 04.16.14 at 1:09 pm

Apparently after the Hitler Diaries, which the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper had embarrassingly authenticated, proved to be forgeries, a rival don in Peterhouse, the Cambridge college of which Trevor-Roper was Master at the time, bought a dog and named it “Diaries,” just so he could walk around the college courts yelling “Diaries! Diaries!”

26

Bloix 04.16.14 at 1:25 pm

Many years ago, when a friend got a puppy, a bunch of us were sitting around thinking up names. Our friend said, don’t worry about it, I’ll come up with something soon enough. And one of the guys said, dripping with sarcasm, so what will you call him in the meantime? Ned?

And of course …

27

jwl 04.16.14 at 1:30 pm

As an alternate suggestion: Klingon names never go out of style.

Worf, Kahless, Mohg, etc.

The additional benefit is that you can call out commands in Klingon to the dog as well, for maximum embarassment.

28

J B Eddison 04.16.14 at 1:36 pm

1) For the record, the Hobbes cartoon character was named for the philosopher (as was his counterpart Calvin for the theologian).

2) Name the dog as Tintin named his: ‘Snowy’ in English, I don’t know the French.

29

AB 04.16.14 at 1:49 pm

Esau.

30

Phil 04.16.14 at 1:51 pm

Speaking as the past owner of a dog called Henry (you’d have liked Henry) I’d counsel against anything that’s even vaguely recognisable as a person’s name. People will look askance; people will make funny jokes.

Our cat when I was growing up was called Little My; the cat we’ve got at the moment is Snufkin. Neither of them fitted the names very well, unfortunately.

Something long but shortenable would appeal to me – “Arcimboldo” (Archie) or “Gesualdo” (Jess), maybe. “Athanasius”. “Atahuallpa”. “Montmorency”. A four-syllable name is also good for calling out in full, for variety.

/me makes note to get dog and call it “Mont-mor-EN-cy!”

31

Lynne 04.16.14 at 2:00 pm

That puppy is adorable! How old is he? Our golden retriever is named Clover, (one man in the park, hear it, said, “What, is she a sheep?) but it suits her. I once knew someone with a spaniel whose official name was Quiche Lorraine, but she was always called Pie….

Oh, friends of ours just got a border collie mix they call Blake (yes, after the poet). I thought they’d end up calling him Billy, but no, Blake it is.

I look forward to seeing more pics of this pup, and please tell us what name you decide on.

32

Random Lurker 04.16.14 at 2:02 pm

Toki, from the character in Hokuto no Ken.

33

Maria 04.16.14 at 2:23 pm

Lynne, that was taken when he was 6 weeks old, and he’s now almost 8. I’m afraid it is inevitable that I will post more pictures of him!

34

MPAVictoria 04.16.14 at 2:25 pm

“Lynne, that was taken when he was 6 weeks old, and he’s now almost 8. I’m afraid it is inevitable that I will post more pictures of him!”

Yay!

35

Berrypicker 04.16.14 at 2:30 pm

Oh my..I think you are spot on with either Milo or Bosco – based on the image.
Don’t try to be to creative unless you like explaining.

36

Theophylact 04.16.14 at 2:35 pm

Milou?

37

Lynne 04.16.14 at 2:49 pm

“I’m afraid it is inevitable that I will post more pictures of him!”

Oh, good! I forgot to suggest a name. How about Buster? The name of the dog my mother had as a child. Or, since he’s an Easter arrival, Bunny? Or egg. :) Or Egbert. Okay, I’ll stop now.

38

Darth Snuggles 04.16.14 at 3:09 pm

How about Cameron?

Then you can go to the park and yell out things like “Cameron, stop humping people’s legs!” and “Cameron, don’t eat any more poop!”

39

TM 04.16.14 at 3:11 pm

I would have called it a cat. Oh darn, too late.

40

TM 04.16.14 at 3:11 pm

Hobbes is out of the question: feline.

41

Paul K 04.16.14 at 3:31 pm

Avoid “Bo”. I’m convinced that dogs hear in vowels, and you’ll want the “oh” sound to be reserved unambiguously for “NO!”.

42

Bloix 04.16.14 at 3:58 pm

“We’re not allowed to get pretentious ones after writers and such”

You can always choose a pretentious name that shortens up nicely. Or use the first name, not the last. And why not something Irish?
You might choose Carolan, after the harpist, and call him Carry.
Or how about Finn, after Finn McCool?
Or Seamus, for Seamus Heaney? In the US, Seamus is a great name for a dog, I don’t know about London.

43

Tom Slee 04.16.14 at 4:06 pm

Gendered names are overrated, and Laika does give the Russian connection via the space dog, and you can play Arcade Fire instead of shouting.

44

Teachable Mo' 04.16.14 at 4:16 pm

Morgan. After the 60s movie hero who thought he was a monkey.

45

T. Gracchus 04.16.14 at 4:22 pm

I rather doubt the dog will care whether its name matches its sex (whether dogs have gender is another question). But if you think otherwise, you could follow Johnny Cash and name it Sue.

46

Harold 04.16.14 at 4:37 pm

What about Stirlitz or Gorky, Vanya, or Alexi — Sasha?

47

Eimear Ní Mhéalóid 04.16.14 at 4:51 pm

“Bran” is the traditional Irish dog’s name (after one of Fionn Mac Cumhaill’s hounds Bran and Sceolán, in legend Fionn’s cousins born to a transformed mother).
Cuchulainn himself bore a dog’s name and I’ve known people to turn this around and call a dog Culann, which is shout-in-the-park-able.

48

mud man 04.16.14 at 4:53 pm

I thought Fuzzbot was good. Although I don’t know if calling “FUZZ!” in a South London park is OK.

49

Harold 04.16.14 at 4:55 pm

Lenski? Misha? Dersu?

50

CJColucci 04.16.14 at 5:00 pm

I would never recommend a dog name, but I would advise against naming after a former dog, depending on your present emotional attachment to the former dog.

51

Thornton Hall 04.16.14 at 5:20 pm

Apropos of Belle’s last post: Burl Ives

52

stevenjohnson 04.16.14 at 5:22 pm

Go counterintuitive? Red, or Blue

Anticipate? NoNo (Might be confusing)

Get metaphysical? Doggod, or may Goddog. Upside, you can claim it’s Welsh.

53

godoggo 04.16.14 at 5:38 pm

Crapper.

54

Dogenfrost 04.16.14 at 5:45 pm

Sake is a nice name and rice wine can come in white.

Saki is a nice variant and a few will recognize him as hhmunro.

Our first dog was named Dogen after the author of the Shobogenzo. I still think it’s a great name for a dog.

55

ingrid robeyns 04.16.14 at 6:04 pm

Idéfix sounds like a great suggestion!

Along the Russian line: Igor?

What about ‘Thor’, named after the God of Thunder and many more things? The first dog I grew up with was a black dog with that name…

56

Maria 04.16.14 at 6:19 pm

Thanks everyone for the fantastic suggestions.

It occurred to me while reading the thread that cats are far more suited than dogs to having ironic names.

Bloix, Seamus was an early front-runner, even though my great-uncle and god-father was a Seamus. But E vetoed it. Finn is a great name and I did consider it, but I know two many human ones. Eimear’s suggestion of Bran is great, but given my negative associations of really boring Irish readers where the dog was always called Bran (and the boy was Sean and the girl was Maire and Mammy was always washing up, and so on) I’m more likely to name the beast Cerberus.

57

Maria 04.16.14 at 6:21 pm

Oh, and next week I will post a picture of the furry bairn and say what he’ll be called. I expect he’ll have a lot of middle names.

58

Maria 04.16.14 at 6:22 pm

Tom Slee, I really like Laika, but I always feel it’s a bit melancholy, now that I know she never came down.

59

Bloix 04.16.14 at 6:30 pm

Whatever name you pick will be a great name because the dog makes the name and not the other way around. My favorite dog of all time was named Mickey, and if you’d known her you would have said it means happy, affectionate, playful, patient, and stunningly beautiful. She was a half-Samoyed, by the way.

60

TM 04.16.14 at 6:38 pm

“cats are far more suited than dogs”

You nailed it. I could have told you in advance had you asked.

61

MPAVictoria 04.16.14 at 6:42 pm

You know this thread now has me feeling a bit down. My pug Stella turned 13 this year and her health is definitely fading. It is a true shame that we love these creatures who we are destined to outlive.

62

Maria 04.16.14 at 7:07 pm

Oh MPA…

63

Maria 04.16.14 at 7:09 pm

I hope Stella has some good times yet. Warm furry animals and the intensity of our relationships with them really show how much love we have to give, not all of it human-shaped.

64

Teachable Mo' 04.16.14 at 7:19 pm

” It is a true shame that we love these creatures who we are destined to outlive.”

I grew up with cats and didn’t know how to handle a dog. Our first was a big one: a collie/German shepherd mix that was hybrid hardy in size but incontinent as a leaky hose. We lived together uneasily for many years before I learned how not to be a jerk about it. Then, he got an aggressive cancer and died within weeks of the diagnosis. We knew it would be any day, but we kept putting off the trip to the vet. The last morning walk was over snow, and we got half way around the block when his back legs gave out. Dogs have those damn eyes. Always looking to please. Like that line from Mr. Bojangles, “After 20 years he still grieved.” It’s been 26.

65

MPAVictoria 04.16.14 at 7:34 pm

Thanks Maria. I feel like she still has some good days left. She still seems happy about life and eager to go for car rides and sit on laps. We even, and please do not judge too harshly, bought her a doggy carriage. What is that you ask? Basically a baby carriage for dogs. Stella is too stiff to go for real walks anymore but she loves to get out and meet new friends so we push her around in this and let her out to sniff and explore as she wants. I admit to feeling a little silly pushing around a pug in a baby carriage but people seem to get a kick out of it and Stella loves it.

Teachable Mo’
Your comment made me tear up and go listen to Mr Bojangles on Youtube.

66

Ken 04.16.14 at 7:55 pm

Snowball

In honor of the past/present winter

67

Lee A. Arnold 04.16.14 at 7:58 pm

I think it can be a bad idea to name pets with person’s names in the big city because then you might yell “Here, Sally!” but unbeknownst there’s a Sally standing near you, and that might be embarrassing.

68

minky 04.16.14 at 8:18 pm

Muttnik – the first dog in space; of Siberian extraction and thus a distant cousin to your little puffball.

69

Main Street Muse 04.16.14 at 9:35 pm

If you want to do the Russian thing, you could go back about a hundred years and consider Vladimir, Leon (I kind of like this one) and Nicholas (Nick, Nicky, Nickolai).

Our dog is Finn – depending on how I’m feeling, it’s Finn McCool or Finnegan or Finster. He’s a mountain mutt/Carolina dog.

I once had a very beloved cat named Jake Barnes, for the obvious reason…

RONAN (RF) your dog is adorable!!!

And Maria – please do post more pooch pix!

70

Zora 04.16.14 at 9:35 pm

I have a cat named Widget, who is semi-feral and hates me. Nevertheless, it’s a good name for a small dog.

I quite like Dogen. A venerable name.

71

Bloix 04.16.14 at 10:05 pm

“the dog was always called Bran (and the boy was Sean and the girl was Maire and Mammy was always washing up”

I am old enough to have learned to read using “Fun with Dick and Jane.” The dog of course was Spot. See Spot run. Run, Spot, run! But the mother was “Mother.” Nobody I knew ever called their mother “Mother.”

72

Sasha Clarkson 04.16.14 at 11:07 pm

There’ve been so many good suggestions here Maria, that I think you might have to acquire a pack? :D

And yes, we lose them or they lose us: but, humans or non-humans, if we miss them, it’s only because they were worth having in our lives. :)

73

bexley 04.16.14 at 11:17 pm

There are some who call him … Tim.

74

EdSez 04.16.14 at 11:25 pm

Scamp. Can be said in various tones of voice, as events warrant.

75

TheSophist 04.16.14 at 11:25 pm

Saruman the White?

76

TheSophist 04.16.14 at 11:26 pm

…and, completely ot but related to my last comment, I just got approved to take a dozen students to Middle Earth over spring break next year. Yay!

77

Warren Terra 04.17.14 at 12:01 am

I can’t believe no-one has mentioned “Five-O”.

Or, on a completely different track, Snoopadoop.

78

Lestin 04.17.14 at 2:43 am

Gandalf!

(Or, before that, Saruman.)

79

In the sky 04.17.14 at 2:51 am

If you’re on a Bosco theme, you could call him Dustin.

Or Marty Whelan.

80

Niall McAuley 04.17.14 at 7:54 am

Or even Judge.

81

Maria 04.17.14 at 8:26 am

In the Sky – I loved how the dog in a Roddy Doyle book (the commitments?) was called johnnygogan. I did consider zadiesmith as a name a while ago but dismissed it as too many consonants. You want something that rolls off the tongue easily for when the beast is disappearing into a sand dune or traffic.

82

Maria 04.17.14 at 8:30 am

MPA, I briefly thought the little dog prams were a sign of affluenza end times. Then I read Anne Patchett’s recent essays/memoir ‘this is the story of a happy marriage’. When her beloved dog gets too old to walk comfortably, she pushes him around the neighbourhood, braving disapproval to make the sweet creature happy again. It’s really tender and lovely. Funny, the book is about two marriages, but the biggest love affair is with her dog. I recommend it, though you’d want to have a think about whether it’s to be read before or after, if you see what I mean.

83

Maria 04.17.14 at 8:33 am

Hurray, Sophist!

84

Maria 04.17.14 at 8:34 am

Yes, Sasha, I think we’ll need to get a whole pack of them to use all the good names.

85

MPAVictoria 04.17.14 at 1:11 pm

“MPA, I briefly thought the little dog prams were a sign of affluenza end times”

Ha! I thought the exact same thing but what can I say, she loves it.

I will keep an eye out for that book though I might wait until later to read it.

86

Alan White 04.17.14 at 3:57 pm

How about “Altie” or “North”? He’s obviously a Whitehead.

Very cute dog. Makes me miss my corgi Burt. After he died I calculated that we walked approximately the distance across the USA, leg-lifting and pooper-scooping all the way.

87

CJH 04.17.14 at 4:49 pm

Barkis.

Then again, I always suggest Barkis.

88

Phil 04.17.14 at 4:55 pm

MPAVictoria’s comment reminds me of something I’d forgotten, or stashed away. A dear friend of mine had a dog called Emily (not having had the foresight to consult me on name choice, possibly because I didn’t then know her). Emily got very old and very tired, and we all wondered how M would take it when she had to be put down; she lived alone (as far as other humans were concerned) and Emily was basically her oldest and best friend. What happened in the end was that an aggressive cancer took M first; Emily survived her by a day or maybe two (she was in a very bad way by then; I think even M would have had her put down if she hadn’t been otherwise engaged).

Anyway, one of the ways in which Emily started to fail, before M’s own health problems hit, was that her back legs stopped working so well; in fact, after a while they didn’t work at all. So M got her a little two-wheeled cart arrangement – a doggie wheelchair, really – so that she could rest her hindquarters while still going for walks. At M’s memorial a neighbour said he’d seen M walking Emily with her cart. He didn’t say it looked odd or silly; he said he looked at them and he thought, “Man, that lady loves her dog!” Hopefully when people see you they’re thinking something similar, MPAV.

89

MPAVictoria 04.17.14 at 5:27 pm

Thank you for that Phil.
/Truly

90

Nora Streed 04.17.14 at 6:11 pm

My current (boy) dog is Boris, aka Bob, aka Bobo, aka Bo, aka Borissimo. I was undecided for quite a while and someone suggested he looked like nothing so much as an awkward teenage chess prodigy.

I did have a Stella (Stellaluna, as she had huge black bat-ears), and it was in fact very satisfying to stand on the porch and yell “STELLAAAA!!!” She took her walks in a wagon in her last days.

91

Dogen 04.17.14 at 6:21 pm

@Zora comment #70: Thanks! One of the great joys of having a dog named Dogen was that I got to say the word “Shobogenzo” in conversation several times. It’s a wonderful word, it gallops gleefully off the tongue.

Of course the name Dogen violates the stricture “not allowed to get pretentious ones after writers”, but it does so with so much panache! If you’re going to break a rule it’s more fun to just obliterate it altogether. I mean, you might as well get shot for a sheep as a lamb, right?

My favorite Dogen story only indirectly involved the dog himself. I had taken up racing (windsurfing) and racing boards are about a meter wide and quite thick. So I wrote “USS DOGEN” on the back of my board.

One time I was about to go into the water a guy walked up and asked me about the name. I said “it’s the name of my dog”. He said “oh, that’s also the name of a japanese philosopher”, and I got to say “yes, that’s who I named my dog after”. Good laughs all around.

If you’ve read this far into this comment you win the Internets for today.

92

Maria 04.17.14 at 7:31 pm

Then Dogen I am indeed the winner. How do you pronounce it – rhymes with brogue or sounds like dogged?

Phil, thank you so much for that, too. Beautiful. I think I must have some grit in my eye.

93

Dogenfrost 04.17.14 at 9:28 pm

Heh, it rhymes with how I pronounce brogue, with -en added.

94

Sasha Clarkson 04.17.14 at 10:15 pm

re @90: there we are Maria – is Boris Godunov? (groan) ;)
(and he’s blonde like the other one: are you planning to have him neutered or will his doghood be left intact? )

95

godoggo 04.17.14 at 10:23 pm

Stinky.

96

godoggo 04.17.14 at 10:24 pm

Smuckers.

97

godoggo 04.17.14 at 10:26 pm

Shmeckle

98

godoggo 04.17.14 at 10:45 pm

Corvette.

99

godoggo 04.17.14 at 11:20 pm

Inconceivable.

100

Alan White 04.18.14 at 1:38 am

Phil’s story reminded me that I celebrated Burt in a poem; I don’t wish to hijack the thread, but this is my bold celebration of my friend:

Redeemed by the CARQUEST Man
For Burt, 1996-2007

Eleven o’clock and time to walk Burt,
now 11 as well going on dead,
needing a strap around his left hind leg
so that the other three play out his marionette sprawl,
one-fourth puppeteered well enough
to sniff and mark the kingdom in his head.
I am full of death now, 54 a number with sharp edges
scarring my heart—when Dad grabbed his chest, eyes
ablaze with disbelief that a body could be Aaron Burr
too. Burt doesn’t know death, but I know his
will come when this damn strap isn’t enough,
and he will look at me as if I were some god, or satan.
The air tonight is an extra skin full of grease
that will kill something if not me.
We cross the street safe in the fact that
towns this size breathe traffic in gasps, and this late
suffer from apnea.
Burt sniffs and waddles, and then I hear a sound
I have heard a hundred and ten times at least,
a truck’s groan as it upshifts onto my street-cum-state-highway,
and I know it. He runs through Burt’s kingdom,
not knowing it as such, every single stinking night,
seven unbelievable days a week, delivering
cables and batteries and injectors to cars
that need cutting into, like a man’s chest, to spite junkmen.
He waves at the man with the dog who now needs help
but didn’t not so long ago, and I wave at him,
our only contact because of delivery rounds and emptying bowels
in a senseless synchronic union. I smile the only smile
I will have until bed, as Burt and I stumble back
through the dark summer night, secured in our love for
rhythm, the familiar, the not quite yet childless moment.

101

godoggo 04.18.14 at 1:42 am

Poo.

102

rustypleb 04.18.14 at 2:56 am

Kea. As in Mauna Kea. Mountain White. Plus you can yell it like Stella….. KAYYYY Ah. Here boy.

I had a chocolate lab named Bosco. After the syrup. Trained him to wear sunglasses with a croakie all day. He really liked sunglasses. He wind surfed with strangers at the beach down the street. Back when they used those really big Bic boards. Cars would ride by and blow the horn and people we’d never met would call out for Bosco. He also board surfed. I had to glue a piece of astroturf to the front of an old longboard we’d ride tandem. Also fetch under water, like from the bottom of a pool. This was before children. We had lots more time. And the next dog was named Buster after a local city commissioner who proposed banning dogs from the beach for sanitary reasons. At the public hearing he complained: “They leave those fetuses all over the beach. You can’t move without stepping on a fetus.” So we named the dog after him. irresistible. Someone stole Buster.

103

Louise 04.18.14 at 4:24 am

Being Maria’s mother I need to add this warning : Sweetie acquired her name because no one in the family could agree on a name and as the poor puppy needed to be addressed and was so adorable, Sweetie stuck, much to my delight and my childrens embarrassment..

My suggestion ? Veto !

104

BarbRoseman 04.18.14 at 5:30 am

Maria, you know how my family came down on this issue, with a Rosie and a Martha. We find that the girl names work well, though there are so many dogs named Rose, or a variation of that, that in the dog park it’s sometimes hard to tell whose dog is being called/reprimanded/loved to bits. From your original list I’d go with Milo or Max. You will inevitably rely on nicknames so don’t get too hung up on the “real” name.

What a cutie, all fur at this age (though with Samoyeds, aren’t they all fur all the time?).

105

Ronan(rf) 04.18.14 at 1:26 pm

Main Street Muse @69 – thank you for your kind words ; )
Yeah he is cute enough, though nuts (though not mine, more my parents – who bought him after I left. As a replacement, I assume)

106

Bill Murray 04.18.14 at 2:53 pm

I like Nevsky

or if one wants to go Russian, Cher or Cherona, are close to the Russian words for snow and snowfall

107

Happy Medium 04.18.14 at 9:01 pm

He looks like a Dwight to me.

108

Ebenezer Scrooge 04.19.14 at 11:56 am

Ziggy!

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