Monday, September 21, 2015

Ask OBP #9

Welcome back to answers to your questions! Without even knowing it, Gina has asked a very personal questions about how the pugs got their names and if there is a significance to their names. This is a good question, Gina and we are happy to answer. I will share this in an out of order fashion, though. Gina mentioned that she already knew how Cupid got her name (short recap: she was sprung form the pound on Valentine's Day). But it is true, we have never really shared the story behind the names of the pugs.

I will begin with Luna. Luna came to us as Luna. That is what her name was in her original home and the rescue group left it as Luna. We actually were not in love with that name initially, but did not want to change it since it had been her name for 2 years. If we adopted a 2 year old child, we probably wouldn't change the child's name. You grow and learn your name and we wouldn't have wanted our own name to be changed, so we left her name as Luna. The reality was, though, Luna did not know her own name. We totally could have changed it. And in a sense, we did. Luna grew into knowing her name as being Looney (and only when spoken at a certain pitch). She never really learned her "proper" name of Luna. And even though we did not love the name Luna at first, we grew to love the name because of how much we grew to love Luna herself. With Luna, we embraced that she was the moon (which is Luna in Spanish) since we already had the boys as our stars, we knew once we got her, we had it all. Or we thought we did.

Enter Sol. Sol came to be name Sol as Luna's complement. Adding Sol to our mix, that is when we realized that NOW we had it all. The Sun, the Moon and the Stars. Since Sol means sun in Spanish, it was a natural fit. She also fit that name. She lit up our world like the sun lit the sky. Her name was also a play on words. She was not only Sol but she was an old soul and very soulful. So, Sol it was. For the blooper tape, I will share that our second choice for a name for her was Vada. Can you even imagine? That name now seems ridiculously unfitting.

Now the boys, Benjamin and Henry. From the "man on the street" we used to get a lot of questions about the names of the pugs. It did not make sense to many folks that we had 2 people names and 2 pet names. Well, that is because the boys are indeed named after "people" in a sense. It is a coincidence that both Grammy and G'Ma have boy maiden names. Grammy's maiden name is Henry. G'Ma's maiden name is Benjamin. Hence, the boys were given family names.

The irony of this is that the boys so lived by those family traits that even if they were grown from our own genes, they could not more have been more like the familial side they were named after. From personalities to health issues, to life span, they fit each side of the family for which they were named. We got Benjamin one day before Henry and without seeing Henry first, we gambled and gave Benjamin his name. Henry, by default, would just be Henry. We nailed it. They were perfectly named. We often wonder if we had named them the opposite way if we would have been able to find family traits that made the names fit the other way around. Of course in our convoluted heads we probably could but we are glad that we don't have to do so. To us, their names fit them like a family glove. The naming of the pugs would not have made the blog other than the Ask OBP since it is more about the peeps than pugs, but it interesting story. (At least to us! Ha!)

Another question came from Sandra B. She asked about Sol and if her fur was often shed all over our fawn colored home. And what was so weird about Solsey, was that she barely shed. She had a coat like a sheep! It was a few layers yet never seemed to shed. It was very unpuglike that she barely shed. So, while it would have made sense that black fur would have been all over the various shades of fawn, there were only a few stray black hairs around the house. And truthfully, those could have come from Henry! In his younger years, he had a fair amount of black hairs tucked within his fawn coat. Good question, though, Sandra!

Terry and Christie also had questions but I am going to store those until NEXT week! Sorry to leave you hanging but since I have been playing Dear Abby so well and answering all the questions early that I'd better leave a couple in the hopper! Sorry to delay your answers to what are all really good questions! See us in Ask #10, though and they will be answered.

The questions just keep getting better. So, thanks for asking! We love answering them and we always wonder what stone have we left unturned that you simply had to ask. Until next week, feel free to ask.