You’d think he was being murdered by Firefly, brutally murdered. This is why I take videos of them playing too, as evidence that he puts her on the ground as often as he likes, and in fact he taunts her into chasing him, and in further fact he loves every moment of it because who’s a good boy.

We brought Firefly home from the shelter five weeks ago today and the adjustment has been painless for all of us because she and Primo are both such good dogs that there hasn’t ever been any doggie bullshit like fighting over food or attention. About two weeks ago, they started really romping in the back yard for hours every day, which is when I think they truly bonded, but whenever that bond happened, apparently it made Primo decide he was okay with Firefly humping him constantly because for the last week or so, she has been exploring all the possibilities to that fine art. The other morning I looked out the kitchen window and she was doing this for so long and he was tolerating it so patiently that I was able to get my camera from the other room, switch it on, and record the final moments of the crime.

Don’t feel sorry for Primo. This is karmic retribution for all the dogs back in Italy who he did that exact same thing to while playing in Parco Valentino. I’d seen puppies face-hump older dogs but Primo was the first adult dog I’d seen do it, and the dogs he did it to always seemed startled and confused, and apparently even in Europe such things are odd because more than a few of the Italian humans present seemed rather appalled. But also amused because come on, if you don’t think that’s funny, at least a little funny, then I don’t know what you possibly could find funny on this planet. I mean it is a dog humping another dog’s face. It’s obviously not sexual and therefore it’s not creepy or dangerous, it’s just straight-up funny.

Here’s a classic performance of the hump-craft from 2001, Sunny and Digger:

I must tell my tale in GIFs because that hasn’t been overdone and worn out on the internet yet.

This is how I have felt for the last 2 1/2 weeks, trying to name our new dog:

I thought I’d figured it out last week but alas, a few days ago, I un-named her again. I love the word “zucca” but after several days of making that word with my face, including calling it out at the park, I realized it just isn’t right for this particular dog or my particular face that makes words. It made my teeth feel weird, that Z sound with the K sound after it. Does that make any sense? I told this to Rupert Not His Real Name and he started questioning his wife-choice.

He grimly tolerated my flakiness about the naming of the girl dog, understanding that I’ll literally lose sleep at night if I feel the name is wrong. But even strong men have limits to their patience and after the third or fourth change, he started pointedly calling her Girl Dog Who Deserves a Name and doing this a lot:

Late last night I lay awake in bed in a stark cold sweat hating myself for being so indecisive (that is not a condition with which I usually suffer and I find indecisiveness in others excruciating), and then it came to me. My friends and I had already considered Serenity, Shiny, Kaylee, and Jayne because Best Show Ever, but for some unholy reason none of us had uttered the obvious.

Well finally my brain uttered it in the cold loneliness of the night:

Right? Right?? You’re gorram right I’m right. She even looks like that GIF.

My relief is enormous. I don’t even care who doesn’t like that name, I feel fantastic.

…….

I followed a link to a site yesterday about people’s stories of their adopted shelter dogs, and the headline was something like, “Proving that shelter dogs can be very loving.” Whut? Was that in doubt? Are there real people who have the idea that dogs you adopt from a shelter are not as good in some way as dogs you buy from a breeder or get from a friend? Is this a thing? Almost every dog I’ve ever had came from a shelter and they’ve all been wonderful, trusting, trustworthy, magnificent beasts. These current two, Primo and Firefly, are the only ones I’ve adopted as adults instead of as puppies and I suppose that was risky and maybe I’ve just gotten lucky but damn if they’re not the most delightful dogs I’ve ever had.

Also, is it just me, or does anyone else dislike that it’s now common to refer to all dogs adopted from shelters as “rescues” and every act of shelter-adoption a “rescue”? It seems to me this wasn’t the term we used the last time I adopted a dog from a shelter (Sunny in 2001); the last I remember, “rescue” was used only for groups that fostered dogs of a certain breed, like a Rottweiler Rescue group. I understood that. I don’t understand calling every shelter-adopted dog “rescued”; I think it sounds a little grandiose, a little Look At How Heroic I Am.

I just can’t use that word to describe the transactions that occurred when we took Primo out of his Italian shelter and Firefly out of her Texan one. The truth is that Primo rescued me from what was becoming a rather grim case of depression, and Firefly is a gift of pure light and joy. She makes me smile and laugh more in a single day than I did in weeks about a year ago.

Somehow I managed to be taking video of them playing the back yard the first time I ever saw Firefly freak the eff OUT. She’s been more and more active since all her stitches came out last week but yesterday she achieved new heights of full-on spaz. Good lord:

About an hour later, they’d both calmed down and Primo was the impeccable Italian gentleman that he is, sharing his favorite stick because that is what one does for una piccola signorina:

We took them on a long nature walk this morning that involved both of them covering themselves in glory, by which I mean river mud and dead animal stink. When we got back, I gave them each a bath, by which I mean a shower. Really, who gives dogs “baths”? We have the perfect set-up, a walk-in shower with a detachable shower head, so I take off my shoes and go in there with them and scrub them down and it takes about 3 minutes per dog and God Bless ‘Murrica.

It’s in the 80s here today and sunny, sorry everybody not in Texas, so after their showers and a towel-drying, they ran out to the back yard and flung their bodies around in the grass to get all the horrifying clean water off of them, and then I cracked eggs while Rupert cooked bacon, and then I peeked outside to see what they were up to on the patio and oh my god.

I counted and there are seven other rugs and cushions out there, and our back yard is not small. This was not closeness out of necessity, it was closeness because I don’t even know why but I love that they have been brought together to share their doggy lives.

Also, Zucca’s belly is all healed up, and she wants you to know it. Mostly she wants you to scratch it.

P.S. About that 80s and sunny weather thing…it’s supposed to be 19 degrees and sleeting here by tomorrow night. Blerg.

Yeah, me neither. This is a lot less depressing.

Yesterday I found Primo with his arm draped over Zucca for the first time, and then last night this happened:

Rupert and I had been on the couch with them, watching TV after dinner, and usually when we get up to go to bed, Primo jumps down too. Not this time – they were still like that half an hour later, their adorableness compelling us to break our own rule against letting animals on the couch unless a human is also on the couch. We were also so weakened by the scene that we didn’t even care they weren’t both on the purple blanket meant to protect the leather. Screw it, furniture is replaceable, happy dogs are not.

Both of the dogs had to go to the veterinarian this morning, Primo for his bordetella booster and a refill on heartworm prevention, and Zucca to introduce her and have her belly sutures checked because three of them had disappeared in the last 12 hours even though she never messes with the wound. The vet, whom everyone calls Dr. B and that’s even what her nametag says and I love her, says the wound is healing marvelously and is already all closed up so no worries. And literally within one hour of getting back home, the last two sutures were disappeared, too. I’m amazed that a two-inch belly incision can seal up completely in 8 days but here we are.

She also has a runny nose and does that “backward sneezing” dog thing but Dr. B thinks it’s just allergies, not an infection from the shelter, thank god. She weighs exactly 15 pounds and I’m under instructions to fatten her up a little because she’s extremely bony and probably malnourished. No problem there; one day I’ll video this girl eating and you will agree she’s like Guy Fieri rampaging through a pulled pork food truck.

It appears that Zucca very much enjoys Primo’s butt, because this is how I found them this morning:

I went foraging through Sunny’s old stuff yesterday to find something to put on Zucca to formally begin her training in the ancient craft of Dog Performance Art, but everything is huge on her, obviously. All of Zucca is about the size of Sunny’s head and neck. Not even the antlers will stay on this one’s tiny head, nor will Primo’s Jayne hat. Plus even if I tried, she won’t stay far enough away from me to let me take a decent picture unless she’s in bed or nuzzling Primo’s buttcheeks. This is a dog who really realllly wants to be ON you, and she actually will hug you if you let her. Well she’ll learn to get her picture taken good and proper because though I don’t have any green beans in the house, I do have a fresh-cooked batch of beef liver. Get ready, Zucca.

By the way, three or four people have already asked me on Facebook why I’d name our dog something that rhymes with fucka. We have Rupert Not His Real Name and Sunny Peace Be Upon Her, so this one may have to become Zucca Rhymes With Hookah. Or, obviously, with Lucas. Zucca Lucas, bam.

Last year, my friend crafted a masterpiece of dog headgear for Primo (your dog wants one too, so ) and I was and remain impressed by her talent. Now it turns out her husband, Dan, has his own special skill and that is naming a new dog perfectly without even seeing a picture first. Last week, when we’d adopted the new girl but were waiting for her spaying, I didn’t have a photo because the shelter had taken her online listing down and I’d forgotten to take pics myself, so I described her to my knitting friends (Stacy is one of them) and asked for help in picking out a name, mentioning that I liked the name pumpkin but that Rupert had vetoed it because it was too “cute”.

Dan said, simply, “Zucca”, which is the Italian word for pumpkin. Ah-hah! Perfect! But then I am a spaz and talked myself out of it after saying it loud several times, thinking that it was too sharp or something. Possibly my problem was that I was pronouncing it with the correct Italian accent because that’s how I learned the word. Zook-kuh. Hard Z, both c’s enunciated, all of it in the front of my mouth. So I thought, no, it’s not the name.

Then I spent the last 8 straight days trying every single other name that has ever existed in English or any other language. She has been Gemma, Ginger, Sweetie, Alice, Caramella, and, most recently, Lugnut. That’s right, Lugnut happened for a whole day until I woke up this morning and realized it sounds like we’re cursing her in German.

Anyway, all this time, as my frustration and annoyance at my own self grew and grew, I kept rolling back around to Zucca, first once a day then once an hour. I tried softening it and pronouncing it like an American since I am in fact an American, and even found myself cuddling her and mumbling, oh sweet girl Zuzu and then while eating lunch today I actually called her a zucchini for reasons nobody will ever understand. The point is that I realized her name is Zucca.

Primo continues to be adorable and sweet with her. She gets in his face and is an attention hog in the extreme, but he’s patient and only grunted at her once, when she tried to steal his chew stick. They’re starting to cuddle a little when they sleep; this morning I found them with Primo’s arm draped over her. They moved when I tried to creep out of the room to get the camera because they don’t want to break my blog with their winsome charm.

It turns out that Zucca hates the vacuum as much as Primo does, which is tough for them because now with two shedding dogs, I’m having to bust out that machine every afternoon. The other day they fled together to the staircase landing for safety:

I convinced them the vacuum was gone so they rassled each other for a minute and then Primo decided he’d rather lay down and get his belly scratched, but Zucca wasn’t finished so he got stalked real good. This one is titled “SOON“.

Man, it’s fun having two dogs again.