Mutt's in a Name? The Dog Blog

Mutt’s in a Name?:  The Dog Blog



Nugget

      As you may have gathered, if you read my blog on a somewhat regular basis, I have a thing for names. They interest me to the point that I keep a list on the fridge of names that I find to be unique or unusual or new-to-me.  With all due respect, I get a lot of them from the obituaries.

Names on the Fridge

     So it’s not a real stretch that I have begun to pay close attention to the dog names in my life.   What I am noticing is that dogs more and more have people names.  Instead of Sport, Rover, Rocky, Lady, Tippy and Skipper---dog names from my distant past, the dogs in my neighbourhood whom I see almost daily have people names.  Brad, Ernie, Haley, Rosie.  Sammy Davis Jr. lives on the next block and you must use his entire name when addressing him.  Astrid Elizabeth Ann is a boxer who lives down the street; her friends call her Astrid.  Charlotte lives around the corner.  My mother’s name was Charlotte.  My middle name is Charlotte.  The new princess’ name is Charlotte.  And so is the West Highland Terrier who lives around the corner.    

Princess Charlotte and her Parents

West Highland Terrier, Charlotte

 

    Is it because families have fewer kids that they use their favourite names for their pets?  Larry, Elvis, Ellie, Emma, Mabel, Basil, Doug.  My dog Nugget was already named when I adopted her.  Who knows, if she had been nameless, I may have called her Alice Munro or Angela Merkl or Helen Mirren.  She looks more like an Alice than an Angela, I think. 

 Alice Munro

 Angela Merkl

Helen Mirren

Nugget.  Or Alice Munro? 

     When I was a kid, we always had a dog and he (or she) was always called Skipper.  One Skipper would follow another Skipper.  This was mostly due to the fact that my father would not call a dog anything else.  So if anyone in the family got creative and tried to call the new cow dog Blue or Patches or Lassie, that name  would not last more than a week.  Because my father would never change,  in order to avoid a totally confused dog with an identity crisis, the dog's name inevitably reverted to Skipper, as in “Skipper, go get the cows!”  , "Sic ‘em Skipper!” , “Skipper, go lay down!” , “Skipper, get  home.”  That would be the extent of the interaction my father had with the dog.  You see while I’m made of granite, as my family repeatedly tells me, my father was made of cement laced with rebar.  Not exactly warm and fuzzy.  Every animal on the farm had a job; there were no pets.  Skipper’s job was to get the cows to the barn at milking time.  Skipper the First, Skipper the Second, Skipper the Third ---same old job.  You get the picture.  Skippers were never allowed in the house; they slept in the porch and ate table scraps from an old tin pie plate with a hole in the bottom. 

Skipper at Work

     Our Skippers had no dish with their name on it, no poop bags, no leash, no collar, no ramp to get on the bed, no doggy backpack, no stroller, no trips to the vet, no needles, no kangaroo dog food, no dental work, no allergy tests, no flea medicine.  If the dog got into a porcupine, one person held his head down between the tines of a hayfork, and someone else pulled the quills out with a pair of pliers.  If the dog got sick, you stopped feeding him for a while.  If he got really sick, you called the neighbour to come shoot him in the back pasture.  Dogs did merit a grave, however. 

Not Skipper in the Stroller

     Today's dogs are pampered and privileged compared to our Skippers.  And I can’t really say much.  I have a pampered privileged dog who eats kangaroo dog food and wears a coat, boots and a New Brunswick tartan ascot. 

Nugget

 

     What's more, I have a pampered privileged cat who is quite sure she deserves the very best of everything, including several high-falutin’ names such as Josie, Josee, Slippy, Ring-Tailed Snorter.  She acts more like an Elizabeth or a Victoria or a Sheba if you ask me.

Slippy and Julia

Slippy in her own Mind

 

 

 

 Until Next Time.............

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doll Dishes and Milkstools

Doll Dishes and Milkstools

Last December at a get-together with one of my social groups, a friend proposed a challenge to the 4 of us for next Christmas.  She proposed that instead of buying each other Christmas gifts, we should make them and spend no more than $5.00 on each gift.  Now here we are at the next year.  The annual  gift exchange is tomorrow and I am excited to see how we all did with that challenge.

Possible Resource

The $5.00 challenge got me thinking about making things.  As you can see by my knitting obsession, I do make quite a few things, and I made many gifts this year.  My reflections took me back to the first thing I remember making….a cupboard for my sister’s doll dishes.  I still have that Doll Dish Cupboard and I have dragged it around throughout my life for about 50 years.  It must hold meaning for me.  In the house where we now live, it has gone from basement to garage, to inner basement, to garage, to camp, to garage, to basement.  You get the picture.  Well, since I have been having these nostalgic flashbacks, I have gone to the basement, dug it out and washed it off.  It deserves a place of honour in my Knitting Studio, obviously.  I must have hung on to it for some reason?  I will be able to use it to hold yarn, or doll dishes, or turnip tags, or expired flashlight batteries, or something.    It already holds memories.

 The Doll Dishes Cupboard

       When my room-mate Tom walked into the kitchen, he looked at the cupboard mournfully and said, "It seems so sad.  And lonely."  How can a cupboard be sad and lonely, I thought.  Decrepit, for sure, but it is 50 years old. 



 This Doll Dish Cupboard started out as a crate that held grapes.  My father would have dragged it home from Atlantic Wholesalers or Willett Fruits upon making delivery of our rhubarb or turnips or cabbage or squash or potatoes.  He would have seen some use for that wooden crate, although I bet doll dishes was not his first thought.  He would have seen it as useful to hold tools or ropes or chains or a motor or something.  He may have even brought home some half-rotten grapes in the crate. 

Wooden Grape Crate

     I can imagine the conversation between my father and me about that crate.

                “Barb, that crate would make a great little cupboard for doll dishes.”

                  “Yeah,” I would answer, assessing it with my 6 or 7 or 8 year-old eyes.

                “You should make one for your little sister.” 

     

       Kathy, my little Doll Dish Sister, was about 4 or 5 or 6 years old, and the definite favourite.   Did I buy into the cupboard idea because I wanted to make something, or because I was a nice big sister???  You can guess the answer.

Doll Dishes

      My father would have gone into a brief description as to how a cedar shingle was exactly the right size to work as shelves and that I could paint it afterward with some left-over turquoise paint.  And then, he helped me build it.  Or should I say assemble it.  A real cabinet-maker would not use the word build. 

Cedar Shingles

 Leftover Turquoise Paint

     As I look at it now, the assembly of the cupboard would have been pretty simple.  A wooden crate, 2 cedar shingles and turquoise paint.  I don’t remember every detail about building that little gem with my father, but I remember parts of it.  I do remember being in the garage with hammer and nails and my father.  A saw would have been required to cut the guides that held the cedar shingles that became removable shelves in that cupboard. 

Cedar Shingle Shelf Removed

I remember building one other item with my father in the garage….a 2-legged milkstool.  In my early years as milkmaid, I was too little (or awkward) to balance on a one-legged milkstool which was standard issue, so, rather than be excused from milking duties, my father helped me to build my own little milkstool.  I remember my Great Uncle Frank being in the garage when I was trying to nail the 3 pieces of board together.  “Hit the nail on the head, Barb. The wood’s all right.” 

The One-Legged Milkstool

                My little milkstool was so crude and so cute, built with dirty old used lumber, and lots of bent nails where I missed with the hammer.  After I graduated to the one-legged milkstool, my rustic little artefact hung around the barn, wedged into a corner awaiting repurposing.  I wish I still had that milkstool;  I could use it in my knitting studio as a footstool.  Alas, it went up in flames when our barn burned when I was 12.

Did building that cupboard and milkstool start me on the road to making things? I still get the best charge out of making something from nothing---repurposing.  Like my mitten tree.....

The Mitten Tree

or using scraps of yarn.... 

Bottled Scraps of Yarn

to make mittens. 

Mittens Made from Scraps of Yarn

      I know part of my inspiration is simply genetic cheapness but I wonder if part of it is genetic creativity or innovation.  My father built things out of necessity and cheapness.  There is some satisfaction in both. 

No one would ever call my father a doting parent, but building that cupboard and milkstool with him nurtured creativity and confidence in a 6 or 7 or 8 year-old child.  The best thing a child should be allowed to make is mistakes. 

In the Knitting Studio

Until Next Time....