Inessentials

Nicole and I are getting a puppy. I realize it’s not as cool as getting a pony, but still, it’s pretty fun for us. Nicole has wanted one since before we were married, and I always found some reason for putting it off. Mostly, I argued that with our frequent moves from apartment to apartment and state to state, it would be hard to find decent accommodations that would allow a dog, especially one not yet house-trained. Well, now we live in a condo that allows small dogs, we’re nearby to a park, and we are home enough that I ran out of arguments and started getting excited.

After experiencing some frightening aspects of the puppy mill industry, we finally found a Shih Tzu breeder that we really like. We missed out on the litter that would have given us a dog immediately, but fortunately we were able to get a dog that will be old enough to come home with us in early May. That gives us time to get ready, time to make sure we aren’t rushing this decision, and time to pick out a name.

That last one seems to be the hardest. Originally, we thought we would get a fun little boy named John Wayne. (Puppies in a litter often have names around a theme until the new family chooses a name, which the breeder then begins to use. Our litter were named after old movie stars.) As his personality developed, though, we thought he would be a bit too rambunctious for our boring lifestyle. Problem is, all the names we had come to like were boy names. Since we picked a girl (Bette Davis), we don’t have any names on hand.

This is where you come in. Help us name the puppy. The winner gets a lifetime supply of smug satisfaction.

About Bette Davis: She is a Shih Tzu, black with some brown undertones and a white chest with a tuft of white on her left paw, the second smallest in the litter, a near twin with another pup, and has a relaxed but playful disposition.

Rules for Names: None, really. The names can be human or not. They can be descriptive or not. They can be common or not. (See: we don’t even know how to pick out name, not just pick one.) (Even if you don’t have a name suggestion, you might have suggestions about what makes for a good/bad name.)

Suggestions so far: Pepper, Raven, Chloe, Zoe, Sophia, Addie, Puppy, Little Mitzi, Tiara Princess, Brownie, Blackout, Midnight, Chocolate, Bear, Deanna, Dorothy, Nora. (Can you guess which ones were from the nieces and nephews?)