Peregrin Took

Several months ago I wrote a post called "What's In a Name". The gist of the post was that our name does not define who we become. I must now recount this sentiment in at least one instance: If you name your dog after the most mischievous of hobbits, he will undoubtedly live up to his name by becoming the devil in K-9 form. I suppose I better back track just a bit. In case you are one of the ten people in the world who has never seen nor read J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings series, I will briefly explain what a hobbit is. Hobbits are about half the size of regular men. They have hairy feet, a love of parties, pipes and pints, and they live in little underground dwellings with round doors. They are also capable of extraordinary feats, such as saving Middle Earth. For more on this, WATCH THE MOVIES (one rare instance where the movies are actually better than the books, in my opinion). Now, back to the maddening mutt, who happens to be the subject of this post. Last fall I was baby hungry. But, a baby didn't seem to be in the cards at that point in time. Naturally, I turned to the next best (or so I thought) thing; a puppy. As it turned out, the family who lives just behind us had lab puppies at the time. I made the rookie mistake of holding one, and we were nearly the proud owners of a chocolate lab, until we remembered that we didn't want the interior of our home turned into a slobber-covered hairball and that we didn't have the yard space to keep such a large dog happy outside. We decided it would be a much better idea to find a small breed that didn't shed. Perfect combination (or once again, so we thought). Fate intervened at this point. Some of our best friends fell upon an opportunity to bring home two Zuchon puppies. The owner didn't mind them taking both, so long as the brothers were kept together. Our friends figured that having the brother pups live a block away and getting them together for regular play dates was enough togetherness. They asked if we were interested. Within a few weeks, we had a new addition to the family. Also within a few weeks, a pink plus sign showed up very clearly on a certain stick. Time to pull out the baby name books! First, however, there was the matter of naming a black and white fur ball. I have always liked the idea of literary names for pets. This way, you can use a name of a character from one of your favorite books that you would never dream of actually using as a name for a child. There's a good chance if you name your kid Pippi Longstocking, she'll probably get beat up at school. Well, Dirk and I started tossing around names of some of our favorite fictional characters.....Sirius Black (too serious), Mr. Bingley (too peppy- more of a lab or terrier name)...... Frodo.....Merry.......Pippin! Pippin... it was perfect. Aside from being the name of a character from one of our favorite series, it also sounded like a dog name. We would name our mutt Peregrin Took and call him "Pippin". This, I laughingly said, was so that when he was especially naughty, we could use his full name. How clever! If only I had known then just how many times I would end up bellowing out the name "Peregrin Took!" Occasionally I can also be heard to yell "Fool of a Took!!", although I don't think it is nearly as intimidating as when it is intoned by an all powerful wizard. In case you are one of the ten in the dark about this whole hobbit thing, I will inform you that Peregrin Took is the hobbit equivalent of Curious George, and he causes Gandalf the wizard a lot of grief.

Oh, how naive I was the day we brought our precious puppy home. "I've been through two babies (one with colic) , two terrible two-year olds (talk about a tongue twister), and two rounds of potty training. How hard could a puppy be?", I thought. This would be a cake walk. It didn't take long for me to realize that a puppy is very much like a human child, only you can't diaper a puppy. In my beginning, exhaustive state of pregnancy, I was kept awake much of the night by a constant whimper. In the midst of my morning sickness, I was cleaning up little doggy presents left for me by my precious pooch. In the midst of my nesting, I was finding new chew marks on furniture and various other household items every day. "It will get easier", everyone said. "The first year is the hardest." "Take him to puppy kindergarten." So we did. Off we went to Petsmart, where we were taught how to house break, walk, and discipline our doggy, and where we were also talked into buying him more expensive food than we feed ourselves. Puppy school did help. Soon, there were far fewer accidents in the house. Pippin would respond to commands to "sit", "stay" and "come". He was now "kennel trained" and was not whining all night long. We had painted over some of the more obvious bite marks on the window sill, and the rest we decided to think of as "rustic touches" to our quaint abode. During my "if I don't have a nap today I might kill someone" daily resting periods, Pippin would cuddle on my lap. All seemed to be going well. Then came baby. It was all very Lady and the Tramp. Pippin's favored spot on my lap was soon occupied by someone with much less hair. And, alas, poor Pippin had no Lady. My other two children handled the transition of bringing baby home surprisingly well. It was the dog who had issues. He began reverting back to some of his more Tookish ways. At times, he was outright defiant. Once I was downstairs rocking Ryan. Pippin came down, looked right at me, then turned, lifted his leg, and peed all over the space heater. That one definitely elicited a "Fool of a Took!", among other phrases. There have been many more such incidents, and I have cleaned up shredded diapers from the trash can more times than I care to remember. There have been so many days when I have imagined Pippin playing happily on a farm many, many miles from here. On one of my "the baby has been crying all day; the older two are driving me to drink with their fighting; and if Pippin chews up one more diaper, I am going to have myself committed" days, I mentioned the farm idea to Dirk. We obviously weren't capable of giving Pippin the attention and training he needed. Surely he would be happier somewhere else. Dirk promptly agreed. Then came the matter of bringing this plan up with Morgan and Hyrum. Over a nice family dinner, we calmly mentioned our idea. The look on Hyrum's four-year-old face stopped the plan dead in it's tracks. We were stuck.

We learn something from every trying experience we pass through. From the experience of trying to train a demonic hobbit dog, I have learned exactly two things: 1. I am not a dog person (a bad thing to realize after you actually bring a dog home.), and 2. I will do anything to protect my children from heartache. I am still trying to find the balance of being a good mother and a good dog owner. As Ryan and Pippin are both getting a little older, this is becoming a bit easier. But I would certainly never recommend having a puppy and a newborn at the same time. Then again, maybe it's good to get all of the hard things out of the way at once......like the week my son had a tonsillectomy and we remodeled our bathroom......maybe I am just a glutton for punishment. Whatever the case may be, I know one thing for sure.....Pippin is our first and last dog. And, if at some point in the future, my puppy hunger overrides my sanity and we bring home another dog, we are naming it Road Kill.