Day 3: Dog

I can remember a day at school about twenty years ago when I had the kids out on the playground following some kind of special event. I was walking with one of the moms from that year, as we followed the kids while they completed what they felt was a death march of an obligatory lap around the track before running off to play. For some reason, this mom had their family dog at school. It walked with us, leashed because our school playground technically doubles as a city park. As we walked, I commented how I had always told myself if I hadn’t gotten married by the time I turned 30, I was going to get myself a dog.

“So how old are you now?” she asked. 

“Twenty-nine,” I answered. “For about another week.” 

Getting a dog is one of the few things I remember clearly about that year. I waited to find him until school was out before because I wanted to be home all day to bond with him (and I knew it would be a him), and I knew I wanted a Westie puppy. I’d had a Westie growing up and figured since they didn’t shed I wouldn’t be allergic. When I found him and the day had come to pick him up, Erin drove me so I could kickstart the bonding process by holding him in my lap on the way home. In a way, Erin had named him. When I told her the names I was considering, I told the first choice, which I don’t remember, then the second, then held out dramatically for the third, the one I was leaning toward the hardest: Spencer. As soon as I said it, she replied, “It doesn’t matter what you name him now, because that’s what I’m going to call him!”  

And now excuse me as I go cry for about ten minutes after remembering all of this….

Anyway. 

When I brought Spencer home, I was very clinical about making sure I had everything he would need. I had the crate, the toys, the treats, food, dishes, collar, leash, and even a book about dogs from the famed “For Idiots” series, which turned out to be surprisingly informative. I figured since I grew up with dogs I probably had most things figured out, but soon discovered how steep the learning curve is for the human in the first year of a puppy’s life. Since 30 years old is barely a hazy memory for me now, I can say with complete certainty that if (I know, I’m still hedging on this) I get a dog this summer, it will be an adoption, and most definitely not a puppy. This time around I have a better idea of what to expect, but I’m finding myself stuck on one problem, and it’s a big enough problem, at least in my head, that it’s probably one of the final hurdles preventing me from committing all the way to getting a new dog. 

I can’t think of a name. 

Speaking as someone who has agonized over naming dozens of characters in just the past ten years, names are not small things for me, and there are absolutely right and wrong names in just about every situation. I really don’t think I’d get lucky enough to find a dog to adopt who already had a good name — my sister sent me a link a few weeks ago of a dog she found while internet window shopping that was named Fuzzy, for crying out loud. I mean, FUZZY. Clearly the family that had to give up Fuzzy had given his naming rights to the two-year-old who most likely was in charge of the house.

First, to stop anyone from bringing up this point, I don’t subscribe to the idea that you need to see the dog’s face and know it’s personality before you give it a name. So there’s that. If I’m going to name a dog that will hopefully be with me somewhere between ten and twenty years, the name should either be meaningful or at least have a good amount of character. It could be named after someone or something. It could be a tribute to someone. It shouldn’t be too many syllables long. It shouldn’t be something that lends itself to insipid attempts at clever abbreviations. It can’t be a name that references anything too easily dated; five years ago “Jesse Pinkman” might have been a good name for a dog (not really), but now it would just feel out of touch.

I’m not entirely sure I can make this decision until I have that perfect name figured out. This is a tough nut to crack, and I don’t know if I’m getting any closer. It could take some time.