Name that dog!

Our dogs like Milk-Bone brand treats, and Milk-Bones have advantages over other dog treats -- for us anyway -- they don't stink and they aren't mushy. You can carry one in your pocket without having to dry-clean your coat. I think they're fine as part of the dogs' balanced diet, and if they have that then their diet is better than mine, anyway.

But I bring it up actually to bring up the dog name issue again.

Bones for Friends is a limited edition version of the standard medium-size Milk-Bone biscuits with popular dog names printed on them, as you can see. Well, I purchased this box, but I'm bound to be disappointed. As Milk-Bone says:

Our original biscuits have popular dog names on them! Reach inside and find the perfect treat to celebrate your Best Furry Friend. Found you [sic] friend’s name on a bone?

Not likely. As you, dear readers, know, we named our dogs Tralfaz and Nipper. Tralfaz was the original name of George Jetson's dog Astro when he was owned by the neglectful but wealthy J.P. Gottrockets. And Nipper, in addition to being a good description of our younger dog when he was a puppy, is the famous mascot of RCA Victor. Neither of these are popular names.

Our friends at pet-supply retailer Chewy recently released a list of the most popular pet names for the year based on customer profiles, and it's pretty blah. Dogs:

1. Bella
2. Max
3. Lucy
4. Luna
5. Daisy
6. Charlie
7. Bailey
8. Buddy
9. Molly
10. Sadie

It's the same damn names every year. Not that there's anything wrong with them; they're cute and cheerful, and most are two syllables, which are easy for dogs to remember and to distinguish from other sounds we make. But they're dull. And very much like the top ten cat names -- half are identical. I am of the opinion that a solid cat name should not make a good dog name, and vice versa, and yet here are Luna, Bella, Max, Lucy, and Charlie.

1. Luna
2. Bella
3. Oliver
4. Lucy
5. Charlie
6. Max
7. Milo
8. Kitty
9. Leo
10. Shadow

BORRRing, people. Be creative! Be different! Come on, this is one time in life where you can name something that won't turn on you later for it.

"DAMN IT, MOM! I don't care if Bertha was your favorite aunt! IT'S A STUPID NAME!"

"Bertha, please! I think it's a lovely name. And I'm sorry if you don't care for it, son."

And what's with all the Bella stuff? It can't be because of the Twilight movies, can it? If pop culture was driving this I'd expect to see more Harrys. Look at the others: Buddy. Sadie. Where do they come from that everyone's using them? (I guess of all the Irishy names people like to stick on dogs, like Seamus and Jameson, Bailey was the only one that was used enough to stand out in the crowd.)

The New York City dog licensing people made a search feature to show how many registered dogs in the city have a particular name. And yeah, it's the same stuff. Bella: 1,195. Max: 1,153. Charlie: 856.

Nipper: 3. Tralfaz: 1. Although there are 34 Astros.

So I figured there's not a chance of finding my dogs' names in this box of cookies. Then I pulled one out -- this is, honest to goodness, the first one out of the box:

Macie? That's not on the top ten list. There's only 7 Macies in all of New York City.

So, who knows? I'll keep you informed. Maybe Milk-Bone was willing to go the extra length for the sake of all the canine Berthas out there. (Four Berthas in NYC right now.)

🐕🐕🐕

P.S.: To our friend Mongo, regarding his late pup Raven, there are also 7 Ravens currently in New York. There's 1 dog in town named Mongo as of this date, BTW. For some reason I could not get it to tell me how many dogs have Raven's old nom de net, Mongrel, so I assume none.

Armed and trivial.

This week on Trivia Corner we examine 10 incredible fun facts about those thingies coming out of your shoulders--that's right: Your ARMS!

1. A car's airbag deploys and inflates in .04 seconds. The only safety device faster is your mom's arm whapping you across the breastbone.

2. Carpal Diem = It hurts when I seize the day.

3. The original name of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda was Spleen & Sponge. Other attempts at product names were Noggin & Hatchet, Thumb & Screw, Colon & Lathe, Ankle & Wrench, and Ass & Adze, before the arm was finally selected, along with a hammer.

4. A seven-armed octopus is not a septopus; it is a differently abled octopus.

5. The first draft of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms was entitled Enough with the Arms. Correspondence between him and his editor reveals other titles they considered: Get the Arm Outta Here; Armen't Ya Glad the War Is Over?; Hit the Road, Arms; Arms! Feh!; and The Legs Can Go Too. Finally Hemingway's editor suggested he stop drinking absinthe.

Took a while but he dried out.

6. The bone in the upper arm is called the humerus--so never let anyone tell you that you don't have a humerus bone in your body.

AMAZING FACT! Pope Hilarius also two humeruses!

7. By some accounts, when the serpent met Eve, he said, "Don't be a-scaert o' me, mate! I'm perfectly 'armless."

8. The word armistice comes from the Latin arma (shoulders) and solstitium (solstice), arma having come to refer to weaponry (as in the terms armor, army, armada) and solstice coming from sol (sun) and stare (stand). So armistice means shoulders sun standing. And we think other languages are weird.

Another work by Hemingway.

9. When Hamlet says "to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them," he's not talking about fighting, he's talking about swimming.

10. There is a condition known as Saturday Night Palsy, numbness in the arm caused from passing out with the arm over the armrest of a chair, compressing the radial nerve. Similarly, Honeymoon Palsy is caused by someone sleeping on your arm, compressing the radial nerve. Saturday Night Honeymoon Palsy is when a drunk person or persons passes out on your arm overnight, I guess.

Dawg of the dead.

Dogs and jackals are both members of the order Canis, and sometimes the scavenger really comes out in your little mutt. Tralfaz recently expressed a great deal of interest in a dead bird that popped up (or plopped down) on the lawn. 

As you know, I've tried to explain to the dog that the only birds he's likely to catch will be really sick or really most sincerely dead, and that doesn't make for a healthy snack. But he doesn't listen. 

We know dogs enjoy chewing bones---one stereotype that holds absolutely true---and those bones are not acquired through outpatient surgery. They have a fascination with remains, even if there's no meat on it. I don't know if other species of scavenger are like that. Probably. I'm sure the hyenas are. And I've seen people wearing necklaces of claws and teeth.

We give the hairball pieces of elk antler, which the elk shed and which are very bonelike. They're expensive, but he chews them a lot and for a long, long, long time. It's the dog version of Call of Duty to a teenage boy. 

My first job outside the house was lawn and garden service for a neighbor with a big spread. They had a sweet little black dog who had the run of the joint. One day he turned up with a largely intact skeleton of something that had died in the woods---I think it may have been a raccoon. I don't know why the bones stuck together so well. Still some skin on it, I guess. I can still remember the look of the thing, the surprisingly light weight, the leathery feel of it, the joy on the dog's face.

I flung it into the woods. The dog was back with it within ten minutes. I flung it farther away while he was inside. Half an hour later he had it again. It was the most wonderful thing ever, and however many times and however far I chucked it, he was going to go find it. 

That's one reason why we bury the dead. I hope six feet is deep enough.

Our dog doesn't go running around without a leash, so I didn't have to bury or burn the bird. When Tralfaz was busy elsewhere I picked up the bird with a shovel and took it to the wooded area nearby and flung it toward the trees.

It hit one of the evergreens and stuck there.

Now it's an ornament.

Well, that's one way to keep the dogs off, but I don't think it will catch on as an alternative to cemeteries.