Back when I still lived at my parents place, the festive season would come with that buzz you only seem to get with kids around. I speak, of course, of my little brother Andrew and the air of excitement which would grow as the doors on his advent calendar grew fewer.
Shortly before Christmas 1998 came along, the family had gained a young puppy we’d named Disney. Apparently she looked like the kind of dog you’d expect to see in a Disney cartoon, and I just kind of went along with it in absence of a suitable alternative. After all, we didn’t want a repeat of the Snowy-gate scandal from a couple of decades previously. I’m pretty sure it was three full weeks before Snowy had a proper name, going through Star, Snoopy, Pluto, and various other try-outs before his was finally settled upon. You wouldn’t have figured that a reasonably balanced family would;
a) take several weeks to decide on a name for their cute yellow dog
b) decide on a name usually given to white dogs, not yellow ones.
Regardless of any lack of wisdom shown during the selection process, Snowy seemed to warm to his name extremely well once it had been arrived at, not fazed in the slightest by the weeks of doubt and uncertanty. Although Disney would escape that identity crisis, I often wonder if we would have come up with something better if we’d given it a bit more time. It now seems hard to picture her with any other name, though, and Disney seems as just as happy with the way things turned out as Snowy did back in his day.
It being Disney’s first xmas, and given that she’s a Springer Spaniel – a breed of dog not noted for being under-excited, all things to do with the preperations for the festive season seemed to fascinate her no end. Although she has slowed down a little with age, back when she was fresh out of the box, Disney would be lapping the walls at the slightest sign of anything exciting going on.