My husband, Joe, and I had a long list of names for our soon to be acquired golden retriever puppy.  I wanted to name him Atticus, after the father in To Kill a Mockingbird.  Joe thought that was dumb...can you believe he never read the book and never saw the movie?  Sheesh.  Anyway, he wanted to name him, Bullet.  I didn't like that one, and if you knew Opie, you would know that he is definitely no bullet.  Opie is slow moving and frankly, kind of lazy.  We came to an agreement that since Opie was a red golden, we should name him something to do with his color.  We explored, Rusty, Red, & the word for red in many languages.  We could come to no agreement.

Then my sister said, "What about Opie?"  (after Sheriff Andy Taylor's kid in The Andy Griffith Show).  Ron Howard played Opie and even though the show was black and white, you could tell that Opie was definitely a red-head.  So, Opie, it was.  His papered name is Alaska's Rufous opus, meaning red work of art.

Nicknames:  Leonardo DaGrinchy Toes (he gets really hairy feet in the winter), Stink Neck (He does a lot of swimming in the river during summer months and the thick fur around his neck takes a long time to dry, allowing bacterial growth, and often smells like a dirty dishrag...pleasant, huh?),  Mr. Licktenschtein, Sir Poopsalot, Goomer, Booter, Best Boy Ever, Myopia, Opie-Os, and Scoot.

Dogs from my past:  Ring (I wanted a ring for my finger when I was nearly five.  My Dad came home after work on my birthday and pulled a little beagle pup out of his coat pocket and said, "Here's your Ring."  Freckles (a beautiful little speckled Brittany Spaniel), Trent (a sled dog reject from an Athabaskan village in Alaska (Fort Yukon), he was a Norwegian Elkhound/G Shepherd mix, Tundra (a pound dog Rhodesian Ridgeback and Rottie mix), Griz, a golden retriever, Zach (Griz's son with the Great Pyrenees girl (Liz) next store, and now my Opie, a golden and my first tripawd.

Many of you have heard the story of how we got Emily but for those that haven't here is how she got her name.

We were attending a church out in the country.  One Sunday it is cold and rainy.  There was this little dog that kept jumping on all the cars.  After church two of my sons and  my husand had praise band practice.  My other son found the dog laying under the gas meter shivering, trying to stay warm and dry.  He kept nagging me to go look at this puppy.  Absolutely not, we were not taking this dog home.  After looking at this poor pup several times I called the Hmane Society.  Not open on Sundays.  Okay so we will take her home but I will take her to the Humane Society the next day.  My sons left in one car with the dog.  My husband and I left in another car.  My husband said if there is anyway we were going to keep the dog we better call Bryan because he was calling her Freddie Prinze Jr.    I said no her name is Emily Grace.  Emily just because I love the name and Grace because she came to us from church by the grace of God.  

I did actually call the Humane Society because I couldn't imagine anyone abandoning her.  She was such a sweet loving little girl - also wild and in desperate need for training but hey, she was a puppy.

We didn't get enough time with her but I am so grateful for the time we had.  I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Anyway, she didn't really have a nickname except we called her The Girl, (our other dogs are boys)  Princess, or Em, or Gracie, and all kinds of variations of her name.

My other dogs are Bentley, a choc. lab.  We wanted a name that was sophisticated and classy and Marley, a min pin, who is named after Bob Marley.  Only his name is Marley Bob. He has so many nicknames it would take an hour to type them.

Our first dog was Tristan, a black lab, named after the characrtor in All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriott.

Oh, yay, a topic that is "light" enough that I think I can post without crying.  🙂

I touched on this in his blog, but here's Raven's name story:

I had his grandmother Emma (registered name, she was AKC papered and I rescued her from the pound).  Emma was pregnant and she had her puppies just before I left the country to go on location for a movie shoot with a friend Christopher Lambert, the actor starring in it.  Christopher starred in a cult classic film called Highlander, his character was Conner MacLeod.  So, when time to name my pick of that litter, I registered Raven's dad "Conner MacLeod Simas". 

I showed Conner and made a sperm donation at a show for the sperm bank so that I could neuter him.  Then when he died of cancer, I used that to "make" a puppy by AI.  My pick from that litter was Raven.  I named him that because that movie had a tv series from it with a kinsman named Duncan MacLeod starring in it.  Two puppies from that litter were named Duncan for that reason by the families.  The tv series had a "sequel knockoff" called Raven, about another immortal character.  Since Raven was a Sequel Knockoff to Conner, I named him Raven MacLeod Simas.  Also, the Raven totem signifies immortality, and my Raven made Conner live on in my life.

🙂  Dawn

 When we rescued Tasha she already had her name, we thought about changing it but she was 3 years old and was used to her name so we left it.

 We still call her Tasha but we also call her The Bully Dog. Bully because sometimes she can be sooo stubborn and she is so strong she can just can just bully her way through. 

Over the last 20 years we have had 6 dogs in all.  First was Chance, we named him that because we got him from some friends that couldn't keep him anymore.  Thus the 2nd Chance!  To keep him company we adopted a german shep. female and named her Ava after Ava Gardner because she was so beautiful.  When we moved from Chicago to AZ, Chance became ill and had to be put down.  A few months later we went to one of the local shelters to find a companion for Ava.  Ava passed away from old age in Jan. 2007.  There was a little spaniel mix locked in a crate with the biggest, saddest brown eyes.  He just sucked my husband right into the crate with him and we adopted Glee.  Glee was so named because he was always a happy go lucky little guy.  We lost him to mast cell in July 2007. 

In May of 2004 we took a friend to the local humane society to find a dog, he had lost both of his shepherds the year before and wanted a companion. (he's a confirmed bachelor)  While there, we saw a kennel with 2 pups.  Looking at the paperwork on the kennel, there were originally 10 puppies but only 2 were left.  One was already being adopted, I asked the volunteer if there was a reason for the one not being adopted.  She said "That puppy is mean & nasty".  We adopted her and being she was a shep. mix, of course a German name!  Gretchen

After losing Ava & Glee, Gretchen was alone and you could see she was lonely.  I was at PetSmart checking out the dogs at the rescue there and saw Chuy.  Fell in Love right away.  Went home, brought back Gretchen and they hit it off right away.  We felt that Chuy was a good Spanish name for a dog from Mexico (that's where the shelter is based), so we just kept it.

And the new little sister Anka.  We just couldn't find a German name we liked, so we picked a Swedish one instead!