Monday, February 9, 2009

Oh Captain, My Captain

Choosing a dog's name is no simple task. Long before our little blue was ever conceived, I'd been dreaming up names for little boy and girl puppies. I won't go into the complete details of it (let's just say there were many a not completely sober nights spent drifting off to sleep, murmuring puppy names...)

I think we were in Vermont when we settled on his name. This seems totally appropriate given how much I love Vermont. (My husband and I did after all, go to college in Vermont, get engaged in Vermont, and get married in Vermont).

While more than a few people have suspected his name came from my fancy for rum, this, in fact, is not how I came up with Captain. It's a good strong name for a good strong dog. And I guess the sea-fairing aspect of it appealed, what with my love of the ocean and my Cape Cod introduction to the breed. I pictured my strong beautiful red dog running through the marsh grass. And I also had visions of this powerful scene from the movie Dead Poets Society:


(you can skip ahead to 2:55 if you don't feel like watching a whole 5min)...

The original Walt Whitman poem this line comes from is actually pretty much a downer, but I remember it as an uplifting line from the movie at least.

Anyway, so that's the name story.

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