Teh cute. It kills.

[imbecamiel]

Okay, yes, I am officially killed by teh adorableness. *ded*

And speaking of cute... the litter from which we are (if all goes well!) supposed to get a puppy is due in a little less than a week now! *bounces* I can not wait to actually meet the little ones. \o/ 

Of course, this means that The Naming Crisis is rapidly coming to a head. You see, around here, naming a pet is a major undertaking, necessitating multiple earnest family discussions, sometimes lasting till midnight or so, in addition to the day-to-day tossing back and forth of ideas. This is A Big Deal.

And we still have no idea what we're going to go with.

Ideally, really, we'd love to come up with another Lord of the Rings-themed name. Trouble is, we're not really particularly fond of most hobbity or dwarvish names for a dog, but the more dignified human and elvish ones tend to be rather a mouthful, and not have any good nicknames. We we've hit a dead end there for the time being. 

We've discussed Griffin (or, probably, Gryphon), which I quite like. The guys are kind of "meh" about it, though. They are bound and determined to have a dog named Cooper (they actually wanted to name Strider that). Which Nef and I have declared is Not gonna happen. I'm actually terribly fond of Sherlock as a dog's name, but it, unfortunately, has some rather negative past connotations - some years ago, after our neighbor's kids spent most of a summer listening to our dad read nearly the entire collection of Sherlock Holmes tales aloud to us, they named their new dog Sherlock. Which would've been cool, except he turned out to be a rather nasty, ugly, mean, not especially brilliant little thing that only really liked their (honestly, terrifying) mother, barked incessantly at the most inconvenient times, and was unpredictably nippy. So... hmm, not out of the question, but yeah. Tiro is also a good possibility. (Okay, yes, so maybe Neffie and I are just a teeny little bit obsessed with Roman history. *g*) I honestly thought, given some of the general breed characteristics, Neal would be an awesome possibility, but that one was firmly shot down by certain male members of our household. ;D

There've been other possibilities tossed around with varying degrees of seriousness, but really we don't even have any clear frontrunners at the moment. And yeah, you might say that maybe when we actually see the puppy inspiration will strike... but I kind of doubt that's gonna be a miraculous solution to our dilemma. I foresee much, much more discussion in the upcoming weeks. Um... outside opinions/suggestions are definitely welcome. XD

And speaking of dogs... We're in the midst of minor adventure with one at the moment.

A puppy (well... lab mix that looks to be about 5-6 months old, that is) showed up at our back door tonight. Naturally, being thoroughly dog-deprived and suddenly seeing an absolutely adorable and super, super friendly sweetie... we were stupid and had to pet him. After which he decided that he loved us dearly, and absolutely would not leave even if we ignored him - instead, he just sat outside the door and howled. Yes, he has a collar. Yes, someone apparently cared enough to get him vaccinated, because he's got a rabies tag. Unfortunately, that same owner did not care enough to actually put a tag with any other useful information on his collar. No name for the dog, no name for the owner, no address, no phone number. *sigh* Honestly? This makes me mad.

Fortunately, the vet who did the rabies shot happens to be the same one we bring our cats to. Unfortunately... well, of course no one's gonna be there on a Sunday night, and this is a small-town vet. They don't have anyone available after-hours. No help from that direction.

After some agonizing, we decided we couldn't just ignore him all night in hope he'd wander off home eventually. We're close to several very busy roads, it's dark out, it's slightly ditzy black dog who isn't very visible when running down unlit roads, there are dangerous wild animals in the area (including several rumored cougars), and cars drive very quickly down our very slippery, winding roads, regardless of conditions. I'd feel horrible if the sweet thing got run over just because his owners decided not to pay the few dollars to get a tag with their name and number so people could contact them. 

After utilizing my Awesome Tracking Skillz to examine the snow and figure out which direction the dog had come from originally, Nef and I took Sweet Puppy down the road, presumably toward his home. Buuut... despite stopping at a couple neighbors' houses, one of whom offered to help contact the people nearby he knows, we weren't able to find anyone who recognized the dog or had any idea where he might belong. After we'd walked him nearly half a mile down the road, however, he suddenly took off with more of a purpose, so - we thought he must be close to home, and not being inclined to wander down unlit, not-very-familiar side roads at night we decided to just let him go and head home ourselves.

He caught up with us again halfway back. 

So. In the end, we decided that the best option's to keep him here overnight (got a crate set up in the pole barn), and call the vet first thing in the morning to see if we can get any more information. I hate to do it, because I know the owner's likely to spend an anxious night, but given the alternatives, and considering what I'd want if it was my dog... :S 

We shall see what the morning brings. In the meantime, I am in much need of sleep.

ETA: And success - we were finally able to track down the owner late this afternoon and get the puppy back to her. On the one hand, yay! On the other... now I am even more annoyed with her than I was over the failure to simply put an ID tag on him. *sighs* People.

Comments

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

Okay, that vid is all kinds of cuteness and sweetie-pie-ness! *now wants baby deer and kitten of my own*

Ooh, dog names... I'm in the camp of not naming a dog until I see him so I don't know how much help I'll be, but maybe something Beorn-ish, since after all, he had dogs that lit lanterns and stuff.

I hope by now you've tracked that puppy dog's owner!

[imbecamiel.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just darling? As if either a kitten or fawn on its own wouldn't be cute enough, there you get both of them, cuddling. *melts*

Ooo... Beorn and his dogs - I hadn't been considering that, but we'll have to see if that brings up any possibilities!

Sadly, there's been no luck yet with finding the owner. Puppy's apparently been chewing on his rabies tag, because half the ID number is worn off, which makes it that much harder for the vet to figure anything out. With the portion that was visible they were able to find one likely possibility for the owner, so I've been trying to get a hold of her, but haven't managed yet.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Heh, we never have problems with names. It's usually first come, first serve - if a name pops into our head and we're the first to shout it out, that's the dog's name ;) And I'm usually the one to say the name first. The cats are all mine so I'm the only one who names them.

I hope the owners make an effort to find their pup. My sister is always rescuing dogs, some that have a collar and tags, some that don't. The ones that don't we're never able to find the owner and we end up giving the dog away or taking it to the Humane Society. It's frustrating because it seems like the owner has made no effort to find the dog, and we're making all this effort to help the dog find its way home and it never happens.

[imbecamiel.livejournal.com]

LOL, my family does tend to get all Srs Bzns about things to a hilarious extent, sometimes. To the point where it'll take us, literally, years to make decisions anyone else would be likely to do on impulse. XD

We did finally find the dog's owner, but argh. Now I'm even more aggravated than I was when I first found out he didn't have a tag. He'd been gone for three days, apparently, and wandered about ten miles from home, and it was not at all easy to track her down based on a partially-worn-off number from his rabies tag. But she was so utterly blase about the situation, and seemed rather blank when I, ahem, strongly suggested it would be a good idea to get a tag with her number on his collar, since a neighbor would've probably contacted her days ago if she had. *sighs* It just makes me so mad, seeing such a sweet, sweet young dog with someone who seems to care so little about his basic welfare. If he shows up again, I'm honestly tempted to take him straight to the Humane Society and let him find a new family if she doesn't care enough to look for him. Yeah, I know it's not really my place to make decisions over whether people "deserve" their pets, and I am not usually one to think the worst of people, but... kind of hits a sore spot for me. :/

[scarvenartist.livejournal.com]

Awww, that vid is <3.

Coming up with just the right name is hard, and I don't know if I have any terrific suggestions to contribute. It always seems like a name needs to be the sort of thing that springs to mind rather than extensively researched. I do like the thought of some Roman-esque name though! Have you all considered any Star Trek or Stargate possibilities? Just a thought...seems like there could be some fun possibilities there, if you're aiming to pull a name from fandom. ^_^ LOL, and it does amuse me how the guys are so adamant about "Cooper." WHY Cooper? Though...I kinda do understand their extreme objections to the name Neal. *g* For some reason, while I like the name, I just cannot, cannot fathom it as a dog's name.

And oh, I'm glad to hear a happy conclusion to the situation with the puppy. Hopefully they'll have learned their lesson and tag him properly? Gah.

[imbecamiel.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just cuuuute? :D

Ooo. No, I hadn't really considered ST or SG names... Although, actually, now I think about it, I'm having trouble thinking of ones that I can see as dog names. For one thing, yes, though I may joke about Neal being a good name, I just can't quite see giving a dog a common human name (like, say, Jack). It just seems... a little odd. And the utter ridiculousness of naming a Flatcoat Spock is enough to kill me with giggles every time I consider it. XD So... I like the idea, but I'm not sure what would work. Hmm.

Names. Are. Too. Hard. *flails*

Heh, I am so glad that we were able to find where he belonged. The owner's blase attitude just made me all the more aggravated, though. Apparently he'd been missing for days, and managed to wander about ten miles from home, but she didn't seem particularly concerned one way or the other. Her response when I (rather strongly) pointed out to her that it was not easy at all to find her, that due to that our neighbors had likely been ignoring her dog for some time hoping it'd just find its own way home, and that it would be a REALLY GOOD idea to just get the dog a tag with her number on it (especially given that this is not, apparently, the first time he's done something like this), was pretty much. "Oh. I guess. Sorry." Argh.