“They are what you name them,” or so they say. Over the years, we’ve encountered some interesting names for our dogs. Chubs lived up to her name with her chubby stature, Kinky’ broken tail told its own story, and Lefty earned his name due to a certain anatomical characteristic that never dropped (I’ll let you decide which side).The ultimate naming mistake came with a dog named C.W.
About a year ago, we had a highly anticipated litter of puppies. Puppy 1 - girl. Puppy 2 - girl. Puppy 3 - girl. In the end, the count tallied up to 6 girls and 1 boy. Given that our kennel was already full of girls and that we wanted to add a quality male to our pack, the choice seemed clear.
Our first misstep was involving the kids in the naming process. Lesson learned; historically, they’ve chosen names like ‘Flappy’ for a bird that flapped its wings. (We should have known better).
During this particular naming endeavor, our 7-year-old was deep into his ‘real cowboy’ phase and campaigned passionately for ‘Carl Wayne.’ If you’ve watched ‘How to be a Cowboy’ with Dale Brisby, you’d understand the reference – Carl Wayne, a headstrong escape artist bull that Dale loves to hate.
We are big fans of human names on hound dogs, so finding it amusing, we acquiesced – only to live and regret it. Our Carl Wayne (CW) proved to be just as bullheaded, disruptive in the kennel, and ready to go rounds as his bovine namesake.
What started as a humorous name has turned into karma coming back at us. We knew better than to choose names that come with connotations, but we did it anyways. While a girl wasn’t initially on our radar, we fell in love with his sister, Virginia, and am grateful we decided to keep two instead of just one.
After all, Virginia is for lovers.