Family’s dog loves football

[Editor’s note: The following column originally ran in 2008, but with all the talk about football, she wanted to get in on the action with a nod to the sport this week, even though it’s just through her dog’s name.]

Ask and you shall receive — a dog. The day my last column came out talking about pet names and my growing desire to have a dog — a little, bitty one — there was a knock at my door after supper. It was a neighbor who had been walking one of his dogs.

My husband and I had seen this man while we were walking the week before, and a small dog was following him and his big dog. He said the little dog likely had been dumped. It ran and jumped on me, wagging its tail. Its ribs were showing, and it looked a little scroungy.

“Awww,” I said, “It’s little.”

My husband said, “It’ll get bigger. Let’s go.”

The man said he’d take the little dog home, feed it and take it to the shelter the next day. A week later, this man was on my doorstep, asking if I wanted that dog.

He’d taken him to the vet and found out the dog was about 15 months old, full grown at 12 pounds, and probably a mixture of basset hound and rat terrier.

“I want him,” I said immediately.

My husband rolled his eyes and went to fix the hole in the fence that should have been repaired months ago.

The man drove the dog over to us and had it in a crate — a crate that the man could barely hang onto, because apparently, there was a Tasmanian devil in it. I remember thinking, “Uh oh. What have I done?”

The dog came out and went crazy in our yard — crazier when he saw Bacon, our black cat, who arched like he was posing for a Halloween card. My college son came home soon afterward and gave the dog a small, plastic football, which the dog put in his mouth and ran with the rest of the night.

We tried to come up with names for our new addition to the family. We went through about 150 — from Skillet (to go with Bacon) to Turbo and everything in between. My younger son wanted to name the dog King Leonidas from the movie 300. And then he suggested calling our backyard resident Sparta. I vetoed that. I liked Buddy. My older son came up with Cowboy — for the Dallas Cowboys, and because the dog “has black and white like a cow and is a boy,” he said.

A friend at work suggested Blitz, so we tried that out, too.

We bought him a doghouse, and he made himself at home. He put his football and his chew toy inside.

And he likes to chew. We’ve lived in that house seven years with a screen door on the back door that our dog Panda never bothered.

It took this dog about two days to tear a big hole in the door. I considered naming him Regret.

When it started storming and the tornado sirens went off, the dog was at the door, and when I opened it, he shot in through the hole in the screen and tore through the house. He ended up climbing into the bathtub, even though his legs are only about 3 inches long. Smart dog.

After calling him a different name every day, I finally came up with Rudy, named for the small Notre Dame football player in the movie Rudy.

As Rudy looks at me through the back door, his little head cocked to one side, holding a football in his mouth, I think it’s perfect.

Thank you, neighbor.

Next week, I’m writing about how much I want a new car.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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