A Canine By Any Other Name Would Still Have Dog Breath

How do normal families name a dog? I'd really like to know.

The drama of naming of our new pup began shortly after his arrival on Saturday. My firstborn, Elena, was certain that she alone would be able to think up the perfect name and assumed that the rest of us would naturally have reached this obvious conclusion. This line of thinking evolved into the inevitable power struggle between Elena and Valya, my second child, who also likes to be top dog, so to speak.

Elena wanted to name him Grady, after a certain baseball player. Valya wanted to name him anything but Grady. Nastia, my animal lover supreme, was just plain happy to have a dog and was willing to call him anything. Mariana, Jacinta, and Charlie were just plain happy to have Nastia as an older sister and were willing to call him anything Nastia called him.

Elena used the morning dog walk after Mass on Sunday (while Valya was stuck inside copying a psalm) to lobby Nastia (and thus M, J, and C) into her corner. She played the rather sinister card of saying that our cousins would LOVE the name. They all came back from the walk calling the dog Grady. This set Valya into a fury, and she started calling the dog everything but Grady. Jim caught wind of it all and told them not to call the dog anything since it didn't have a name yet.

We then sat down to a lovely family brunch of perfectly scrambled eggs, slightly burnt toast, and a somewhat heated discussion of canine names.

Starting at the bottom of the lineup, I asked Charlie what he thought, and he shyly whispered in my ear, "Paddy." (Actually, I'm pretty sure, he meant Patty, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt since he is so adorable.) I thought that was a lovely Irish name, quite original for our family, and it got my vote without even hearing any of the others. It seemed right for the baby of the family to have this honor...how could I choose anyone else's? Of course, there was the unpleasant likelihood that outsiders would think the name was Patty and wonder why we gave our male dog a girl's name. It was quickly dismissed by the others.

When asked her opinion, Jacinta announced with naive five-year-old enthusiasm that her choice was King. We all oohed and ahhed appropriately. No idea where Paddy or King came from.

Next was Mariana's turn, and she smilingly said Grady. Nothing more. Valya practically leaped out of her chair but was restrained to wait her turn. Nastia, sensing conflict and wanting to please all involved, admitted that she too liked Grady but that she also thought Chaser (the name that the Humane Society had bestowed on our puppy from the get-go) was a very good name. Valya said her choice was Nibbles, a name she had suggested in the waiting room of the Humane Society, as the dog was nibbling on her.

Elena finally was permitted to plead her case for Grady. Blah, blah, blah, Grady's cute, blah, blah, blah. Then began the inevitable power struggle between the teenage daughter and her father. He did not like naming a dog after a person of whose character he knows nothing. He did not like how Elena had lobbied the others to her side. And he did not like Elena being the one to win and Valya the one to lose. All conveyed in so many words.

Elena declared that we could not leave the table without a decision. Pushed too far, Jim decided that the dog would be named Chaser, since the younger kids had been calling him that Saturday and they all seemed to like the name before the lobbying began. Elena was dead set against it and tried desperately to pull me in to defend her. Honestly, I'm not that fond of the name myself, but I was not about to enter the third power struggle of the day over the name of a dog, especially not with a man who spent all day Saturday painting for me.

I did try to throw out a few other options (actually several other options), and Elena, desperately hoping to avoid Chaser, was uncharacteristically encouraging about all of them. The other kids were enthusiastic too. My favorite was Sam, after Samwise Gamgee.

But Jim had made up his mind. Chaser it would be.

Indignant, Jacinta asked, "What about King?" Since she has her daddy wrapped around her little finger, he agreed that the dog could be formally named King Chaser but that we would call him Chaser.


So, there you go. Family angst, gotta love it. I'm thinking of submitting the story to Oprah. Maybe she'll invite us to appear on her show.

(Next time around, I will drive to the Humane Society myself, choose a dog, and name it on the way home.)