What's in a name

It's Sunday, March 10 around 11AM. This dog and our family has bonded. He hasn't made a peep (a sound type peep) since we had him. He has made the other kind of peep in little spurts at every tree and mailbox we'd come across. But no sounds.

As a family, we had been grappling with determining a name for him since we got him. Everyone had an idea but no consensus. After all we live in democratic family. We had a million names tossed out from typical little dog names like Buddy to ferocious dog names like Spike and Killer to names memorializing dogs and people who have left us like my sister-in-laws late dog Rocky thinking we could keep up the Stallone naming franchise by calling him Rocky II or after my late dad (Hy didn't seem like a great name and Hyman was absolutely out).

Our son's favorite was Carmello since the Knicks were doing so well this year and it sounded a little like his color, but had luke-warm support within the family. We looked at other names that referred to his color like Rusty, Red, and Fire (couldn't call for your dog "Fire" without upsetting the neighbors). Apple had appeal from 2 standpoints - The color and the tech company our family was so firmly intrenched with. After all, he had a chip implanted in case he ran away. That made me think of names like Mac, iDog and iMutt. Mac received a few head nods but no serious consideration.

Our daughter suggested a couple of names from her favorite TV shows- Bates (from Downton Abbey) and Dexter. Most of us liked Bates, but Dexter (the story about a serial killing) was quickly vetoed by my wife. I later thought of Sextimus the Silent from "Once Upon A Mattress" but that probably wouldn't have gone over so well.

Having just gotten past the economic budget cuts referred to as the "Fiscal Cliff", our daughter imposed a deadline. If we didn't come up with a name in 1 hour, she was going to arbitrarily name him with a name so obscene that it would force us to reach a compromise. Our son called this "The Naming Cliff".

So now, down to serious business with a horrible result from not acting and not being willing to compromise. We tried ballots. Nothing. We tried writing our 5 top names each to see if we could reach a consciences. Only "Baxter" (kind of like "Dexter" but without the killing associated with Dexter) made everyone's list but at number 5. No one really liked it.

Why is a name so important? In an earlier post, I mentioned that our family's 1st dog was renamed "Ginger". When we got her at a year old, her prior owner named her "Shiksa", which in Yiddish is a derogatory name for a non-Jewish woman with loose morals. When we got her, we were living in San Antonio Texas perhaps 1 out a thousand people knew what that meant. We thought it was a funny name so we keep it. Later we moved to Las Cruces New Mexico where perhap 1 out a 10000 people might understand the meaning. Then we moved to Midland Texas where maybe 1 out a million might know it's meaning. So we saw no compelling reason to change it.

But then we moved to Barrington Rhode Island. Now the odds were perhaps 1 in 5 people would know what it meant and might be offended.  We couldn't be yelling for "Shiksa" to come home without getting a bunch of stares. So we looked for names that were had a similar cadence and sound and came up with Ginger.

Being faced with this "Naming Cliff" now just a few minutes away, we forced ourselves to settle this. Somehow, a new candidate came to the surface. "Jackson". This made some sense. The dog was from the south, General Jackson was from the south. His tentative name was "Bo". Bo Jackson was a famous dual sport athlete (not that our dog knew how to play- upcoming post explains). But several of us still liked Bates.

We beat the "naming cliff" deadline. His new name....Jackson Bates.

SURPRISE!

Our daughter is real pet lover. She lives about 250 miles away, so we don't get to see her that often. She has been challenging us to get a new pet since Ollie died.

As luck would have it, she was coming to visit that very same evening. Our son was going to pick her up in the city. We all decided not to tell her about our new addition so we could see her reaction. Our hope was that our son would not have that "smirky" expression raising questions on their ride home. She's pretty sharp about picking up on those "tells". Our son naturally has a "cat ate the bird" expression whenever he's trying to keep a secret.

At 8PM, they were home. I was in the family room with "Whatshisname" in our old broken recliner waiting for her to say hi. When she saw this dog, she screamed both in shock and glee. Shock because "Whatshisname" and Ollie (and "Ginger" too) are/were of the same size and general color. She thought Ollie came back from the dead. Glee because she really wanted us to get a dog (don't exactly know why unless it's some kind of payback for something we did to her when she was growing up).

"Whatshisname" had been ours for 6 hours by then. Everyone immediately fell in love with him. He hadn't made a peep during all that time. I wondered if he was unable to bark (wouldn't that be great)! You could tell he felt he was at home already as he explored his new digs.

But what were we going to name him?

Stay tuned.....

Were we out of our minds?

When I woke up on March 9, I had no clue what was in store. For over a year, our kids would tease us about surprising us with new dog. "Oh no," we'd say. We had the freedom to go wherever we wanted to, whenever we wanted to, without making arrangements for the care of a dog (not that we often went anywhere, but now we had the freedom to do so). No early morning or after dark in the rain or snow dog walking,  no more waiting and waiting for the a dog to do his business. No more expensive dog food. No more beauty parlor appointments to have the dog groomed, no more furniture destruction. NONE OF THAT! In fact, the closest we'd come to considering one was when we saw the cutest little rescue dog on a local Sunday morning news show segment called "Furry Friend" that featured a couple of pets each week. We'd get pulled in - then look at each other - and just say "No way".

It was late morning when my wife and I went to do our typical Saturday errands - food shopping, cleaners, etc.

The supermarket we went to shared a parking lot with Petco.  I had no interest in food shopping. So I dropped my wife off and drove to another center a few blocks away to the dry cleaners. As it so happened, there was an Animal Rescue van in the parking lot. When I returned, I got bored listening to how bad the Mets were going to be this year, so I found my way over to the van...just to see....pass a little time.....that's all.

As I timidly approached, one of the volunteers was exiting the van with a Beagle mix on his leash. The dog was very sweet but beagles have a reputation of being barkers. That's not for us. Ollie was a barker. We like quiet.  But I was invited in to see the other rescue dogs and cats that were in the van.

In the first cage, I came across a Terrier Mix. He was a little over a year old and as cute as a button. He was so friendly. I was asked if I wanted to take him out of his cage. Reluctantly, I said yes.  I held him for a while then was asked if I wanted to take him out of the van for a walk. Ok. So we left the van.

We took a stroll in the parking lot and I was sure I was going to show him off to my wife.  Trying to be cool, but excited inside, I brought Elroy back to the van and told the volunteer I'd be back.

I found my wife in the back of the supermarket. She was surprised that I would even consider the idea of another pet. I told her there were actually 3 or 4 dogs that we might consider. So, after leaving the supermarket we went to the van to take a peek. Elroy was in the 1st cage so I pointed him out right away. She noticed how cute and friendly he was. She also noticed he was a little perkier than we wanted. We tried perky - it didn't work for us.

In the next cage, there was a similar dog, estimated to be about 1 year old, a rescue from Alabama. He was a reddish tan terrier mix with a little white whisk at the top of his head. He had an underbite. They called him Bo.

He didn't make a sound.
He hardly moved.  We took him out of his cage. He was very sweet.

We made the mistake of having hyper dogs. Bo seemed nearly lifeless. Yes. This seemed perfect. But were we really ready to try this again? The ARF people suggested we take an hour to make our decision.

We went home and asked our son what we should do. He has very good instincts and he would surely let us know if were out of our minds.

Whatshisname, our new attempt to be successful dog owners

First, he didn't believe that we'd consider another dog. Then, he was very excited that we might. We all went back to the van to take another look and decide.

We were not completely sure what to do. So how did we decide?

1. Obviously, we seemed to think if we found the right dog, we wanted to have one.
2. Is the third time the charm?
3. We choose lively dogs in the past, this one seemed timid.
4. This dog ate regular supermarket dog food.
5. He wasn't a puppy.
6. Not likely to shed much.
7. This is a charitable act and we felt good about adopting.

So we collectively took deep breaths and agreed to adopt the dog formerly known as Bo. But Bo sounded too much like No and if we decided to do this again, we were going to have a trained dog somehow.  It turned out that Bo was just the name the Animal Rescue gave him. They didn't really know his name, so we could name him whatever we liked.

We drove home. He didn't throw up. I guess he wasn't nervous.

Next - "Surprise". Stay tuned....

My very own chair

I don't consider myself a selfish person. I believe I am considerate of others and,  for the most part, am willing to give more than what I wish or expect in return.

In my life, I'd never had a recliner. A recliner symbolizes "your spot" in "your home". It is rarely to be shared. Everyone knows who sits in the recliner.

When we moved to Long Island, we needed some new furniture. We bought a new bedroom set replacing the one we bought 20 years earlier. We needed a new kitchen table, some living room furniture and, for the first time, this new house of ours had a family room.

So we drove to the nearly Seamen's Furniture store looking for some pieces and saw a tan leather recliner as a floor sample. It was post Ginger and we didn't really think we were going to get another dog, so we had no reason to think it would be abused.

For years, sitting in that chair was like going to a totally different place in my mind. Add a remote--heaven.

Then came Ollie.

When he took over, that became his chair. Yes, he let me share it but when he was home alone, it was his spot. But Ollie loved to lick the leather and scratch at the cushion and over time, the area he scratched started to wear away. Eventually, holes replaces the worn areas and this little spot of solitude became an embarrassment.

We knew we needed to replace the chair but while we had Ollie, there was no reason to do that.

We kept that chair for a full year after Ollie passed challenging ourselves to find a new recliner but hoping it would somehow magically appear. We weren't looking for one, we just wished we had one. This past Christmas, I received some universal gift cards and we decided it would go towards a replacement chair.

We started looking on New Years day but weren't convinced we saw anything we liked enough at the right price.  In early March, we looked at that old recliner and made the decision we had to get rid of the old chair. It was beginning to lean to the right (not my political position) and just looked horrible.

So that weekend, we were committed to find the chair. At the price we wanted to pay (somewhere between free and cheap),  we found a few chairs that we liked but weren't the right color or were too "man cave" type (built-in cup holders and coolers). My wife also notice one thing in common with inexpensive recliners-- their feet. They all had these cheap feet. Not like the feet on regular furniture.

So using that as our "quality" standard, we restarted our search for inexpensive recliners without cheap feet.

As we were about to give up our search for the day, we decided to look at one more store - Macy's Furniture Center. Most of their recliners were priced higher than we wanted to spend. But just as we were about to give up, we saw it....an inexpensive recliner without cheap feet.  We scheduled delivery for March 16.

Our history as dog owners

By way of background, animals and us - well we tolerate each other.

Our family has had 2 dogs - each for over 10 years.

Our first one was given to us by a colleague when our daughter was just 4. My friend travelled too frequently to keep her 1 year old dog and wondered if we would like to have her Pekepoo.  The next day, we all went over to see if it could be a good match (like there was any chance an adorable 4 year old and an adorable little dog weren't going home together). On our trip home, she threw up in the car - I guess she was nervous.

Our 1st Dog a.k.a."Ginger"

We were living in San Antonio at the time. The dog's name was.....well 2 years later the dog's name became Ginger. She was spunky and very lovable but she shed her hair like the leaves from the trees fall in late October. We discovered that some of our family was quite allergic to her. So Ginger was confined to areas where shedding could be controlled. But by doing this, she became more of a border than a family pet most of the time.

When she passed on, we decided that maybe we were not "dog people". We went years without one and really didn't feel like we wanted to get another.

Meanwhile, my wife's sister and brother both had dogs - multiple dogs. They'd get on the floor and play with them enjoying them more than people. They loved being licked and didn't mind where their dogs were in the house. My brother in law's dog was well trained. My sister in law's dogs were...let say they were more free spirits. But in that house, the dogs ruled.

One weekend in August 2001, our nephew came to visit for a few days and somehow got us thinking about becoming dog owners again. I insisted that if we were to consider this again, it would have to be a hypoallergenic breed that we could train so he could be part of the family. No gates, no barriers - just a fun and loving family pet.

After some research, we decided on a Miniature Poodle. They have hair instead of fur and don't shed. We found a breeder nearby and went to visit.  She had a few of the cutest little puppies to meet. The first one was very shy and hardly moved much at all. The second one was very playful and seemed to be full of personality.  We decided to have lunch and discuss our options.

So we went to a nearby Olive Garden and discussed what to do.  I voted that if we were going do this, we should choose the more lively one.  Ultimately, we convinced ourselves that - yes - we could be a dog family and chose the "spunky" one. Deciding on a name was easy. It would be "Ollie".

We went back to the breeder and got Ollie. He threw up on the way home in the car - I guess he was nervous.

Paying for a AKC mini poodle was only a portion of what we had to pay. There were all those dog things. A crate, food, toys, leash, collar, treats and all those vet bills.

We had no idea what to expect when we got home, but Ollie was probably just a typical puppy. But we'd never raised a puppy. He was a pooping machine - in the crate, out of the crate - everywhere but outside. He seemed defiant - like he'd intentionally pee on the rug in front of us but would wait till he had our attention before doing so. Oh what did we do.

We paid money to dog trainers and classes. We bought books. Don't get me wrong, he was very cute and could be very lovable but he was always trying to get the upper hand. He'd steal slices of pizza,  jumped in the middle of a dining table and eat what ever was there, tear up napkins, dig holes in and lick to soaking our fabric furniture. Of course, he had a digestion problem and required special canned dog food only available through the vet ($$$$). That prevented him from being borded just anywhere. Every 6 weeks, he had a standing grooming appointment.

He ran away a couple of times and we actually hesitated trying to get him back. But we did feel responsible for him and would always find him.

Ollie

We set up gates and barriers to confine him to a couple of rooms - not what we hoped for. One night, after he was a few years old, my wife and I went out leaving Ollie protected by gates. It was Mother's Day. When we got home several hours later, we were unexpectedly greeted by him at our front door. He had knocked down one of the gates. So we did our snooping to see what was destroyed. To our amazement, we found nothing damaged. No accidents. Wow, did he turn a corner? Did we misjudge his obedience?

As my wife got into bed, she felt extreme dampness. Oh no! Ollie marked that side of our bed as his territory. This was on top of him peeing on her foot one time while she was on the phone.

So we continued barricading a couple of rooms where he couldn't much more damage or where there was vinyl flooring until one morning, inexplicably,  he was gasping and panting. It was obvious (even to us) that something was wrong. The only 24 hour emergency vet was about 15 minutes away. I drove over as I could hear him struggling to breathe. But when I got to the vet's, he was lifeless. it was too late.

We thought that would be the end of us and dogs.