Smoke

He came to us as “Rufus”, a little black rescue dog with a dopey name that really doesn’t conjure any positive images. It's like calling him “Gomer”. He's a total mutt but why hobble him at such a young age? 

Rufus stops and crouches, staring at me with skeptical wolf eyes fired by the very few genes that he has left from those ancient ancestors. I want to rename him something more noble: “Smoke”... that has a certain dark mystery about it. It also honors my friend of the same name, who has a big head. Rufus has a big head too. Well I guess it's really not so big in relation to his body but more...muscular looking. Now my friend Glenn really does have a big head, any way you look at it. Maybe he could say that it houses more brain material than the average cranium and suggest some kind of an intellectual edge. But size doesn't automatically dictate any special qualities one way or the other. I mean, in spandex shorts, I look like I may be smuggling a weasel. Something large, tubular, and very much alive. But I'm old, and it's just a hernia and a piece of prolapsed bowel so don't go getting all excited.

Maybe Glenn has a big head full of encephalitic fluid and simply needs a stent to reduce the swelling. I'm just guessing here.

But the sweetest sound to man or beast is the sound of their own name, so I'll give Rufus a more mysterious name, more worthy of respect... Smoke. I mean, Johnny sang of a “Boy named Sue”, a moniker that always plagued the guy he wrote about. We can do better than that, Rufus. 

You're welcome Smoke, you'll thank me one day, but I doubt my friend will.