Picking a name for an animal is quite like picking a name for a child, you hope they grow into it and that is reflects their personality but you're never quite sure. We have had experience with unusal names in our family my name is "Jody", which back in the early 50's was most often a Southern boys name. But you see my dad was sure my mum was having a boy and because he had been reading the book THE YEARLING at the time it was going to be "Jody" boy or girl. When we adopted our daugher from Korea I gave the family naming tradition a twist.
We named our daughter, who is now 26, for her grandfather (my dad), so she is named Scottie Bree (the Bree was in case she wanted to use a more girlie name). I think she was in third grade when she came home and told me a boy in her class acccussed her of having a boy's name so she proceeded to punch him in the mouth. Sadly, I had to sit her down and tell her most people named Scottie were boys, but that she was named for her grandfather and he would be really proud she had his name. After awhile the name really seemed to fit Scottie and from then I don't think it bothered her at all. It wasn't until she was in high school that the name became an issue again when college and military literature came to our house addressed to Mr Scottie... And she even got notice to come in sign up for the draft. We had to inform them that she was willing to come ,but that they needed to check their records because Scottie was a girl.
Murphy @ six weeks old
I wanted to him to give him a Scottish name, yeah I know I have a thing for Scotland. But I also wanted a short name or call name. The list was long from Angus to Mungo, we were going for the Ale and Whisky name in Scotland mostly. When the husband and daughter started to tag team on the name of Jabba the Pup, I decided that maybe I should call him Cabela, for the sports and hunting store. Well they decided that we should all revisit the names list when he arrived.
About a week before Valentine's Day we drove an hour and a half across the state to pick him up. The breeder "Carlson's Labradors" - check out the link section-- were all ready for us when we arrived. She gave him his puppy shot, told us about the kind of food he needed and signed over the papers. The whole time I was holding this squirmy puppy in my arms like a new 13 pound baby. Our ride home was eventful, he doesn't do well in the car ( still doesn't) and he threw up all over me for the hour and a half ride home. I was thinking a few choice names for him at that moment but I can't repeat them here.
When we arrived home, he proceeded to terrorize our 14 year old cat Moggy, who was throughly disgusted with this new interloper and us. She had had the house for three years to herself after our Newfy died. Of course the puppy thought-- "goodie a new playmate". The cat however went upstairs and procceded, to over the next four weeks, starve herself forcing us to put her down because her liver died. So there went Murphy's playmate, but of course he had me his "new littermate". And yes I did watch the "Dog Whisperer" videos about being the Alpha dog in the house but apparently Murphy had missed that class at the breeder and between us he is the Alpha male and I'm his playmate, beverage dispenser and food waiter. AS to doing his "business walkies" he would prefer my husband to me, maybe it is a boy thing?
He was in our house for only a little while before he began to destroy all that I missed when I did the sweep of baby proofing the downstairs for him. Right from the start we crate trained him with a nice cushion for him to sleep on. And by the next morning after I had had only a couple of hours of sleep as he cried the whole night through, I discovered the nice cushion was now just tatters. And still we were working on the name, but to go along with the Star Wars theme I was thinking "CHEWIE" might be very fitting name.
By this time I was pretty exhuasted trying to stay one step ahead of him be it things he found or his doing his "business" when ever the urge hit him no matter where he was. Can a Lab have ADHD? I suppose an indian name like "He who can't remember to scratch at the back door" might work but he still didn't have the right ring to it. By this time my husband after an endliess clean up duty day was opting for the name OSAMA BIN LABRADOR, as the puppy had become our very own litttle brown terrorist. But I knew that I couldn't stand at my back door in my conservative neigborhood of West Bend and be yelling "Osama time to come in". I mean if the SAS and the Navy SEALs couldn't find the real Osama, I didn't want to give my neighbors ideas where he might be.
Now my first choice was Mungo, who was the Scottish Saint for the city of Glasgow but I couldn't convince my husband of the name so we went back to the list which had names like Angus, Duncan, a few Scottish Whisky names which was the husband's contribution and finally we had a list of 20 name, but we could both only agree on one MURPHY. So Murphy he became, but of course I wanted his name to be a bit more unique than that so with the wonderful help of my friends on my Scottish Writers loop who speak Scottish Gaelic we translated his full name Murphy, brown dog of the sea to Murchadh donn, cù a' chuan. Don't ask me to pronounce it because i can't nor do I need to, but when I sent in his papers to AKC to register him they accepted the name without question or to have an explanation. So that is why he became Murphy and to be honest it quite fits him like a glove, probably a chewed glove but a glove non the less.
Stay tuned for Murphy adventures in the coming days...
Jody
Awww, what a cute little puppy! He is absolutely adorable!
ReplyDeleteHe is cute isn't he. but now at 7 months and almost 65 pounds he isn't quite as adorable as when he was a pup but he has the "manly Lab ready to take on hunting duites" look.
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