I had remained resolute in my resolve to have only one dog at a time from now on. Until I met Zeus, a four-month-old puppy that was the sweetest thing I’ve ever met. It was at a high school graduation party and he was with a bunch of strangers and could not have been more sweet. This is his 10-week-old, 24-pound sister, from the last batch of siblings he’ll ever have:
The big dog on the left (five years old) is supposed to be Great Pyrenees and Bernese Mountain Dog, but I never saw her parents, although she definitely has Great Pyrenees traits (she enjoys herding the llamas every once in a while, and they indulge her for a bit, then ignore her). Yes, I know, she looks like she has some Golden Retriever in her but, as Captain OCD/Obvious likes to point out every time he throws a stick, “She’s no retriever.”
Since we got the puppy the day before Thanksgiving, we’ve been tossing around names and haven’t come up with one that everyone likes. The big dog’s name is Scout, named after Jean Louise Finch, but no one was interested in Jem or Dill or Calpurnia for the puppy. Last night we almost settled on Layla, but she can’t be bothered to respond to that in any way. One of the first names I thought of, out of the blue, was Augie Doggie, who got his start on the Quick Draw McGraw cartoon and that makes me smile every time I think of Doggie Daddy saying, in his Jimmy Durante voice, “Dat’s my boy!” She perked up to “Augie,” so Augie it is, for now, because “Buckethead, come!” is harder to yell.
