{"id":36,"date":"2014-06-14T18:34:23","date_gmt":"2014-06-14T23:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bubbasmith.us\/bubba\/?p=36"},"modified":"2014-06-14T18:35:10","modified_gmt":"2014-06-14T23:35:10","slug":"about-naming-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bubbasmith.us\/bubba\/about-naming-dogs.html","title":{"rendered":"About Naming Dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

You shouldn’t oughta name a dog with a human name.\u00a0 It not only gives the dogs pretensions, it causes people to think they are almost human.\u00a0 Contrary to Politically Correct thinking these days, dogs are animals<\/span>, and while I know some people who claim that, “My dog is just like our children,” I’m not buyin’ it.\u00a0 (Unless of course, there\u2019s sumpthin\u2019 wrong with yore kids.)<\/p>\n

We once had a neighbor, this was a long time ago, whose name was Butch.\u00a0 Problem was, his dog\u2019s name was Randy.\u00a0 I would wave at him when he came or went, but could never remember in time which name to call him.\u00a0 \u201cNow, let\u2019s see, if that\u2019s Randy, then the dog is\u2026, no, the dog Randy.\u201d\u00a0 By the time I figured it out, he was around the corner.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 This was recent-like.\u00a0 They were moving out west, needed a home for their dog.\u00a0 I asked’em what kind it was, and he said, “It’s a black and white Labrador.”\u00a0 Uh-huh.\u00a0 Whatever.\u00a0 It’s a mongrel, probably part Lab.\u00a0 But she had a human name when she got here.\u00a0 I’m not gonna tell you what it was, because it was embarrassing, and because I’ve already deliberately forgotten it.\u00a0 I named her Chicago.\u00a0 I suppose you think you know where she came from now, don’t you?\u00a0 Well, she had four white socks, and it was one of those names that just came natcherl like.\u00a0 When we took her to the vet, we put her name down as “Chicago”.\u00a0 So that’s her name now.\u00a0 We call her “Sox” for short.\u00a0 Please don’t call her “Socks”!!\u00a0 It confuses her.\u00a0 We call her “S-O-X”!\u00a0 She’s from Houston – did I mention that?\u00a0 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”.<\/p>\n

Now this is a true story.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The pen was a bit flimsy, and I’m not exaggerating to say the chicken shed was probably over 100 years old.<\/p>\n


\n\"dog\"
\nOne day I saw a pack of domestic dogs coming down the alley, acting a little bit like humans.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I’ve seen dogs in packs do some pretty stupid and dangerous things.<\/p>\n

Have I told you about my .22 rifle?\u00a0 It’s an old Mossberg.\u00a0 Got it when I was a kid.\u00a0 Now, namin’ guns is different from namin’ dogs.\u00a0 Guns don’t get pretentions.\u00a0 They do what you tell’em, unlike most dogs.\u00a0 And many children.\u00a0 Davy Crockett weren’t ashamed to name his gun “Betsy”, and no doubt he loved it like you might love a good woman.\u00a0 It supported him in whatever he wanted to do, right to the bitter end.\u00a0 Where was I?\u00a0 Oh, I guess these days I ought not tell you why I named my gun “Curiousity”, because it ain’t considered exactly PC.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

So here comes this pack of dogs just runnin\u2019 down the alley, barking at everthang.\u00a0 Every cat they came upon just whisked up a tree or under a truck.\u00a0 Every dog just joined in for the fun.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing a dozen, maybe closer to twenty dogs.\u00a0 There was tall dogs, there was small dogs, and there was intermediate dogs.\u00a0 All barking.\u00a0 All acting stupid.<\/p>\n

And then they found the chicken pen.\u00a0 They hit that fence as a pack, and it was bending with their weight.\u00a0 They were barking up a frenzy, the chickens were running around like they were all White Leghorns.\u00a0 (I hate White Leghorns, even if you do think that makes me a racist.\u00a0 Have you ever noticed how flighty them birds are?\u00a0 You just walk out the back door and they start flappin\u2019 and squawkin\u2019 and freakin\u2019 out.\u00a0 I know, most people already know this, but for you beginners, don\u2019t bother with White Leghorns.)<\/p>\n

So\u2026 what does any normal man with a flock of chickens to protect, and a good gun in my hand.\u00a0 I picked out the largest dog and shot him in the hip.\u00a0 I could\u2019ve killed him, but no, I\u2019m a compassionate sort of feller.\u00a0 If my neighbor wuz to shoot my dog in the hip, instead of killin\u2019 it, I would thank him.\u00a0 (Assuming the dog was worth more than the bullet.\u00a0 Some of\u2019em ain\u2019t.)<\/p>\n

So the dog runs off a-screechin\u2019, and takes the pack with him, to my satisfaction.\u00a0 They sort of scattered after that, with no harm done to anyone\u2019s property, though it was a near miss, and I didn\u2019t calculate how many eggs weren\u2019t laid for the next few days.<\/p>\n

So imagine my surprise when two days later this redneck knocks on my door and demands to know if I shot his dog.\u00a0 Now, how would I know if that was his dog?\u00a0 So I said, \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u00a0 What kind of dog was it?\u201d\u00a0 Turns out it was a yellow Lab.\u00a0 Registered.<\/p>\n

\u201cMight\u2019ve done,\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cThey wuz a pack of dogs trying to get into my chicken pen, and I shot amongst\u2019em to run\u2019em off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d he got real red in the face, \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGosh,\u201d I said, \u201cThat makes me feel real bad.\u00a0 Maybe if you\u2019d of kept it in a pen, that wouldn\u2019t of happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought the guy was going to attack me.\u00a0 He seemed to be trying to control a rage.\u00a0 He said it again, about he how he and his wife couldn\u2019t have children, and those dogs were all the family they had.<\/p>\n

Maybe I should\u2019ve been a little more tactful about then, but after he mentioned he was going to call the police, I said, \u201cWell, you go ahead and do that.\u00a0 But let me tell you something \u2013 those chickens are just like family to me, and you need to tell your kids to leave my kids alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

He left.\u00a0 And I had an unhappy neighbor.\u00a0 And I thought maybe I ought to call the chief of police before he did.\u00a0 So I called Dan up, and told him what happened, and he said, \u201cYeah, I heard, and I been meanin\u2019 to talk to you about that.\u00a0 Listen \u2013 the\u00a0 next time you shoot a dog, do me a favor and use a shotgun.\u00a0 You just never know where a bullet\u2019s gonna go, and it could have hurt someone.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019t make that mistake again.<\/p>\n

(I only learned later that the Chief had a flock of turkeys that his neighbor\u2019s dog had gotten into the pen and killed the lot of them.\u00a0 His neighbor was unhappy too, later on.)<\/p>\n

I love livin\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

Oh, what started all this was namin\u2019 dogs.\u00a0 That danged Labrador had a human name, and I reckon that sort of proves my point.<\/p>\n

Yore friend and dog trainer,<\/p>\n

Bubba Smith<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You shouldn’t oughta name a dog with a human name.\u00a0 It not only gives the dogs pretensions, it causes people to think they are almost human.\u00a0 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’ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bubba-sez"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5oOJg-A","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bubbasmith.us\/bubba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bubbasmith.us\/bubba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bubbasmith.us\/bubba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bubbasmith.us\/bubba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bubbasmith.us\/bubba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bubbasmith.us\/bubba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41,"href":"https:\/\/bubbasmith.us\/bubba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions\/41"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bubbasmith.us\/bubba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bubbasmith.us\/bubba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bubbasmith.us\/bubba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}