About Naming Dogs

You shouldn’t oughta name a dog with a human name.  It not only gives the dogs pretensions, it causes people to think they are almost human.  Contrary to Politically Correct thinking these days, dogs are animals, and while I know some people who claim that, “My dog is just like our children,” I’m not buyin’ it.  (Unless of course, there’s sumpthin’ wrong with yore kids.)

We once had a neighbor, this was a long time ago, whose name was Butch.  Problem was, his dog’s name was Randy.  I would wave at him when he came or went, but could never remember in time which name to call him.  “Now, let’s see, if that’s Randy, then the dog is…, no, the dog Randy.”  By the time I figured it out, he was around the corner.

So anyway, this friend of my most recent wife found out we needed a dog to bark at the coons and possums at night, around the hen house.  This was recent-like.  They were moving out west, needed a home for their dog.  I asked’em what kind it was, and he said, “It’s a black and white Labrador.”  Uh-huh.  Whatever.  It’s a mongrel, probably part Lab.  But she had a human name when she got here.  I’m not gonna tell you what it was, because it was embarrassing, and because I’ve already deliberately forgotten it.  I named her Chicago.  I suppose you think you know where she came from now, don’t you?  Well, she had four white socks, and it was one of those names that just came natcherl like.  When we took her to the vet, we put her name down as “Chicago”.  So that’s her name now.  We call her “Sox” for short.  Please don’t call her “Socks”!!  It confuses her.  We call her “S-O-X”!  She’s from Houston – did I mention that?  But she’s already somewhat psikotic and has poor self-esteem, so we didn’t want to make it any worse by naming her “Astro”.

Now this is a true story.  A few years back, when circumstances dictated that I live in a small town (which was still preferable to a big city!), we had a flock of chickens in a pen at the back of our city lot.  The pen was a bit flimsy, and I’m not exaggerating to say the chicken shed was probably over 100 years old.

One day I saw a pack of domestic dogs coming down the alley, acting a little bit like humans.  They were all following this one bitch around because she was in heat, and they were most assuredly not thinking with their right heads, so I stepped to my truck and pulled out my trusty old .22 rifle, just in case.  I’ve seen dogs in packs do some pretty stupid and dangerous things.

Have I told you about my .22 rifle?  It’s an old Mossberg.  Got it when I was a kid.  Now, namin’ guns is different from namin’ dogs.  Guns don’t get pretentions.  They do what you tell’em, unlike most dogs.  And many children.  Davy Crockett weren’t ashamed to name his gun “Betsy”, and no doubt he loved it like you might love a good woman.  It supported him in whatever he wanted to do, right to the bitter end.  Where was I?  Oh, I guess these days I ought not tell you why I named my gun “Curiousity”, because it ain’t considered exactly PC.  But I will say that if I had put a notch on it for every ___ it’s killed, I’d be on my third stock right now.

So here comes this pack of dogs just runnin’ down the alley, barking at everthang.  Every cat they came upon just whisked up a tree or under a truck.  Every dog just joined in for the fun.  I’m guessing a dozen, maybe closer to twenty dogs.  There was tall dogs, there was small dogs, and there was intermediate dogs.  All barking.  All acting stupid.

And then they found the chicken pen.  They hit that fence as a pack, and it was bending with their weight.  They were barking up a frenzy, the chickens were running around like they were all White Leghorns.  (I hate White Leghorns, even if you do think that makes me a racist.  Have you ever noticed how flighty them birds are?  You just walk out the back door and they start flappin’ and squawkin’ and freakin’ out.  I know, most people already know this, but for you beginners, don’t bother with White Leghorns.)

So… what does any normal man with a flock of chickens to protect, and a good gun in my hand.  I picked out the largest dog and shot him in the hip.  I could’ve killed him, but no, I’m a compassionate sort of feller.  If my neighbor wuz to shoot my dog in the hip, instead of killin’ it, I would thank him.  (Assuming the dog was worth more than the bullet.  Some of’em ain’t.)

So the dog runs off a-screechin’, and takes the pack with him, to my satisfaction.  They sort of scattered after that, with no harm done to anyone’s property, though it was a near miss, and I didn’t calculate how many eggs weren’t laid for the next few days.

So imagine my surprise when two days later this redneck knocks on my door and demands to know if I shot his dog.  Now, how would I know if that was his dog?  So I said, “I don’t know.  What kind of dog was it?”  Turns out it was a yellow Lab.  Registered.

“Might’ve done,” I said.  “They wuz a pack of dogs trying to get into my chicken pen, and I shot amongst’em to run’em off.”

“Well,” he got real red in the face, “I just want you to know that those dogs are like our children, and I took it to the vet and the bullet had bounced off the pelvic bone and gone in to some vital organs, and it cost me (several, I forget how many) thousand dollars before the vet had to put her down.”

“Gosh,” I said, “That makes me feel real bad.  Maybe if you’d of kept it in a pen, that wouldn’t of happened.”

I thought the guy was going to attack me.  He seemed to be trying to control a rage.  He said it again, about he how he and his wife couldn’t have children, and those dogs were all the family they had.

Maybe I should’ve been a little more tactful about then, but after he mentioned he was going to call the police, I said, “Well, you go ahead and do that.  But let me tell you something – those chickens are just like family to me, and you need to tell your kids to leave my kids alone.”

He left.  And I had an unhappy neighbor.  And I thought maybe I ought to call the chief of police before he did.  So I called Dan up, and told him what happened, and he said, “Yeah, I heard, and I been meanin’ to talk to you about that.  Listen – the  next time you shoot a dog, do me a favor and use a shotgun.  You just never know where a bullet’s gonna go, and it could have hurt someone.”

Properly chastened, I told the Chief thanks, and promised to carry both a shotgun and a rifle in my truck in the future, so I didn’t make that mistake again.

(I only learned later that the Chief had a flock of turkeys that his neighbor’s dog had gotten into the pen and killed the lot of them.  His neighbor was unhappy too, later on.)

I love livin’ in a small Southern town (if you have to live in town at all), where all common sense has not been replaced with political correctness.

Oh, what started all this was namin’ dogs.  That danged Labrador had a human name, and I reckon that sort of proves my point.

Yore friend and dog trainer,

Bubba Smith