Archibald

I recently got a 3.5 pound Maltese-mix puppy and named her Archibald. Her mother was rescued from a high-kill shelter in Southern California while pregnant, so I got to adopt one of the cutest, sweetest furballs known to humankind.

Archibald, or Archy for short, is a cute little girl with an adorable, traditionally masculine name. Why did I decide to rename her to Archibald instead of something a little more feminine? Because every dog I've had has been a female dog with a boy name. Bauer was a beautiful, two-year-old, black Flat-Coated Retriever stray when we adopted her from the pound, and she was the most loyal, protective dog in the world. Mutley was about a year old when we got her, and although she was dumb as rocks, she was the most loving, friendly, pretty yellow lab you've ever seen.

Now, it's no surprise that I am a woman with a name traditionally given to men, hence how JohnyTheGirl.com came into being, but for the last year or so, I'd been telling my boyfriend, "one day I'm going to have the sweetest little girl dog and she shall be called 'Archibald pup.'" Yes, that's how I speak because I'm weird, and no, he didn't doubt me. I even joked that he could get a girl puppy and name her Bartholomew but call her Bart for short. He decided that maybe one of us having a puppy would be enough and that I should call her Archy for short. He even suggested Archy ending in a 'y' since the spelling of my name is also not the usual spelling.

Since adopted Archibald, I've learned a few things:

1. Puppies are a lot of work, but all they want to do is please you.

2. Puppy cuddles and kisses are unconditional, and that's a beautiful thing.

3. The smaller the breed, the smaller the poops (hooray)!! Remember, I was a big dog girl before Archibald, my tiny treasure.

4. Puppies have different categories of toys, and man, does that hold up when it comes to "kill" toys.

5. Puppies will eat basically anything off the carpet - no matter how often you vacuum, apparently there's still fun stuff to find to eat!

And lastly, adopting a dog is a lot of work, but there's so much joy that comes with taking care of a little being who will love you so unconditionally. I used to laugh at the meme that said "I wish someone would look at me the way my dog does," but what if we all decided to act a little better in our everyday lives so that we could live up to our dog's expectations? The world might be a better place for it! Also, as a side note, when dogs stare at their owners it's usually because they want something. It's not always just because they love you. This fact, however, has never really been proven because who can actually talk to dogs? Dr. Doolittle was a fictional character, so I'm going to choose to write this "fact" off as false and choose to ignore it.