Blog Post
The Six Segment Story Stack to Start Twenty-Sixteen
- By Jessica Holt
- •
- 06 Jan, 2016
The truth is, my job leaves little time to do much else at the beginning of the year. So starting next week I’ll be posting the first of a six-part short story I wrote. Or maybe seven part because the story itself is really not all that short. But it’s heavy on alliteration, so I want the title to not be completely out of place. If it will take you more than five minutes to read each segment, it may become The Seventeen Segment Story Stack to Start Twenty-Sixteen because short and sweet seems to be the key to a good blog.
This week, with the few precious moments (there those Precious Moments are again, and I wasn’t even trying to tie them in this time) of free time I have left, I will answer the question of why my dog is called Mutt. His official name is Lucas Max Calle Muttknight, and here’s why.
This week, with the few precious moments (there those Precious Moments are again, and I wasn’t even trying to tie them in this time) of free time I have left, I will answer the question of why my dog is called Mutt. His official name is Lucas Max Calle Muttknight, and here’s why.
English was not Mutt’s first language. It wasn’t even his second language, but that’s another story for another day. All I’ll say about that is that when a dog spends his first two years of life with a deaf dog, he’s led to believe that “listening” in the traditional sense is more a suggestion than a command.
Mutt spent much of his puppyhood in a strictly Spanish-speaking household. By the time I met him, Lucas had already come and gone. It was four pound Max who was sitting in the street, his little curled tail all a-quiver, waiting to greet me as I pulled into my new driveway for the first time. It was love at first sight for both of us, and Max kept me company for hours before he was eventually retrieved by Juan, his Spanish-speaking owner.
It was Juan who told me the puppy’s name, but apparently when someone with a thick Spanish accent says the word Max, it sounds a lot like Mutt. So Mutt he became. Max when he was with Juan; Mutt when he was with me. Mutt wasn’t a very pleasant sounding name for such an adorable dog, but who was I to change the name of a dog that wasn’t mine?
Fast forward three months to the day Juan showed up on the front porch with Max and the 45 lb. bag of Kibbles ‘n Bits. When Juan stepped off the porch that day empty handed, Max was no more. I had this wonderful idea to change Mutt’s name to Calle, which means ‘street’ in Spanish. I thought I’d still be leaving him with his roots but also incorporating how we met. He would have none of it. So I moved on to Knight and started calling him Muttknight, thinking it sort of sounded like ‘midnight’ so people wouldn’t think I was crazy when they heard me say it and also thinking I could just drop the Mutt part eventually and be left with Knight.
Knight was around long enough to have that name engraved on his tag for a while. He’s even called that by the people at the Pet Mobile to this day. But he would never let go of that first part of the name. So now he’s just plain old Mutt. A name no one ever intentionally gave him, but clearly who he wants to be. And if he’s happy, so am I.
Mutt spent much of his puppyhood in a strictly Spanish-speaking household. By the time I met him, Lucas had already come and gone. It was four pound Max who was sitting in the street, his little curled tail all a-quiver, waiting to greet me as I pulled into my new driveway for the first time. It was love at first sight for both of us, and Max kept me company for hours before he was eventually retrieved by Juan, his Spanish-speaking owner.
It was Juan who told me the puppy’s name, but apparently when someone with a thick Spanish accent says the word Max, it sounds a lot like Mutt. So Mutt he became. Max when he was with Juan; Mutt when he was with me. Mutt wasn’t a very pleasant sounding name for such an adorable dog, but who was I to change the name of a dog that wasn’t mine?
Fast forward three months to the day Juan showed up on the front porch with Max and the 45 lb. bag of Kibbles ‘n Bits. When Juan stepped off the porch that day empty handed, Max was no more. I had this wonderful idea to change Mutt’s name to Calle, which means ‘street’ in Spanish. I thought I’d still be leaving him with his roots but also incorporating how we met. He would have none of it. So I moved on to Knight and started calling him Muttknight, thinking it sort of sounded like ‘midnight’ so people wouldn’t think I was crazy when they heard me say it and also thinking I could just drop the Mutt part eventually and be left with Knight.
Knight was around long enough to have that name engraved on his tag for a while. He’s even called that by the people at the Pet Mobile to this day. But he would never let go of that first part of the name. So now he’s just plain old Mutt. A name no one ever intentionally gave him, but clearly who he wants to be. And if he’s happy, so am I.
