Last week Ricky and I were at the vet yet again, having his bloodwork done yet again, as we tinkered with his meds yet again, in an effort to lengthen the
intervals between his epileptic seizures yet again. A woman listening in on my conversation with Dr. B said to me, “Wow! They really know your dog pretty well here.” You think so? Just for fun I’ve been saving my receipts from all his vet visits and his specialist visits and his hospital stays and his prescriptions and his selected protein diet foods. I haven’t totaled them up yet, but I’m fairly certain he is soon to become the world’s first billion-dollar dog.
Dr. B, well aware that Ricky is my first dog, often muses about the irony of a rookie winding up with such a high-maintenance pet. “Imagine,” she said, at the end of the visit, “if after Ricky’s time comes, you wind up with a dog who’s normal.” Now hold on! Don’t jump down Dr. B’s throat! She loves Ricky, and treats him with tender loving care. I knew exactly what she meant. Ricky is all I know about dogs. Can you imagine, she’s saying, if somewhere down the road I had a dog who doesn’t have seizures every two weeks? Who can be around people-food without turning into a leaping maniac? Who doesn’t need to travel with his own weekly pill case? Who doesn’t have, in addition to his local vet, his own Fifth Avenue neurologist? Who comes when he’s called?
But whenever anyone talks about a “next dog,” I get squeamish. I want to say to Ricky, “Earmuffs!” I feel horribly disloyal. I’ll bet all people with dogs are like this.
Still, that doesn’t stop me and Robby — technically Ricky’s “owner” and surely his most ardent supporter — from stockpiling dog names we like, for . . . whatever. Our front-runner at this point is “Timmy”; we both developed a deep affinity for San Antonio’s Tim Duncan during last year’s NBA playoffs. But we have a lot of other quality names to choose from, and the list is constantly growing:
BOYS NAMES: Alonzo, Atticus, Benny, Boris, Bronco, Cal, Chauncey, Clarence, Darrelle, Darnelle, D’Brickashaw, Dexter McCluster, Donald, Dramond, Hank Jr., Homer, Hubie, Johan, Junior Cadougan, Kawai, Kemba, Marqise, Merv, Mookie, Peyton, Romeo, Rudy, Shorty, Starbucks, Teddy, Tiago, Tubby, Wego, Wellington
GIRLS NAMES: Lucy, Juliet, Stella, Tupelo
You’ll note we’re a little short on girls names. That’s probably because we’re a little short on girls in our family. At last count, we had only one — Carol. And quite honestly, when we think of a dog, we don’t think of a girl dog. We just don’t. But if the situation arises, I think I’d go with “Stella,” in honor of my dear departed mom. It would be kind of ironic, since she had a deathly fear of dogs, which probably explains why we never had one growing up.
But enough of this talk! Because Ricky — our dear, sweet, peaceable, adorable, cuddly, lovable, maybe-not-absolutely-normal-but-so-what Ricky — is hanging in there just fine.
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