doorstopper

doorstopper.  that’s the name of our 4-month old female puppy.  curious and unusual name for a dog yeah?  yeah!  i’ve heard of curiouser names not just of dogs... but of people.

there’s a twin in our neighborhood named 'A' and 'B'.  ask me “who’s the older twin?” be my guest -- your guess is as good as mine! haha. 

then there’s 'zyrx' and 'xyzyx'.  these boys (zyrx is in college and xyzyx is now probably in grade school) are not related in any way except for the 3 letters of the alphabet their names have in common - letters one would wish was on his car’s license plate rather than on his birth certificate.

and there's my good friend 'magnificentus'...  the name’s not too curious, but it’s quite unusual...  and magnificent!

well uhm... about curious and unusual names of dogs, i don’t think i’ve encountered a name more curiouser than 'doorstopper'.  

doorstopper is a big dog.  she's a crossbreed. her mother is a black labrador and her father is (they say) a crossbreed between a rottweiler and a... crumpleface.  so doorstopper is half black labrador and half rottweiler-crumpleface.  but she got her looks from crumpleface.  so even if she's happy she looks sad.  :(  

uhm, if you crossbreed a tiger and a deer what would you get?  a full tiger!  full... got that... having eaten all it can of the deer, haha!

doorstopper was given to me by a good and liberal fil-chinese friend and his whole family.  yeah, his whole family -- his wife and four kids -- that’s right.  okay! okay! so i asked for the puppy!  uhm, our 7-month old dog 'hachiko' died, blah blah blah... and i didn't get to read the autopsy report, blah blah blah... of course there was no autopsy report, quasimodo! blah blah blah... and my two daughters and my wife were asking me how we could replace hachiko, blah blah blah... and their dog 'julianne' had just given birth to four puppies, blah blah blah... so the good family gave me a puppy.  

how could i forget that sunday afternoon when i came to their house to collect the puppy.  it was reminiscent of the olden days before the international airport was modernized into what it is now.  hordes of relatives and well-wishers waving their final goodbyes would throng the viewing deck from where the huge airplanes were just about a couple of hundred meters away, before they taxied and took off – not the relatives and well-wishers, quasimodo, the airplanes.

the whole family went out of their way, ahh, rather, out of their house to bid doorstopper farewell.  it was one of those parting moments, as shakespeare wrote, parting time is such sweet sorrow!  heartfelt and very touching – if only doorstopper had feelings!  oops! sorry!  i don’t want to hurt those who believe that dogs have feelings too like humans do.  if you believe dogs have feelings, go ahead, believe... fine.

i think daniel (the oldest son who’s 8 or 9 yrs old) felt the uneasiness of the dog being called doorstopper so he gave her an alternate name – snowy.  lovely!  if only his mother had not said, why name her snowy when she is so not white!  

uhm, how did she get the name doorstopper, in the first place?  i asked.  blah blah blah... their dog had four puppies, each assigned to a child (four kids remember?) in the family, blah blah blah.  this puppy belonged to the youngest son isaiah who is (i think) a year old, and who obviously could not give his puppy a name except probably 'dada' or 'waaaah!'  so to solve the apparent dilemma the family decided to name the puppy after isaiah’s favorite toy – a wedge-shaped rubber thing-a-ma-jig people insert in the gap between the door and the floor to keep the door open, or to keep the door from slamming on your face when a strong wind blows while you are entering the house – a doorstopper!

well, uhm... at least that's one criteria on how to name a nameless puppy that belongs to a one-year old child!