The Dog Days of Summer

The sweltering heat wave which baked the East Coast finally returned to where it belongs in August and it brought along the humidity. Ouch. It's been brutal. Air conditioners are working over time and the power company is pleading with everyone to run appliances at night. Oh and let's add a stomach bug to the equation, leaving me with little motivation to paint, model or even thrown down dice over the past few weeks.

There's another reason. There's a new girl in my life. She 4 mos old and weighs in at a stout 29 pounds. It's Saucy, the Labradoodle!

Now Saucy wasn't my choice of a name for her. I knew we'd be getting a dog before the end of the year. I had several naming ideas. The conversations went along like this:

Me: "I know a great name for the dog."
She Who Must Be Obeyed: "What?"
Me: "Rommel?"
SWMBO: "What's a Rommel?"
Me: (surprised that she doesn't know who Rommel is): "Rommel is a World War 2 German General. He commanded the Ghost Division during the Battle of France. He commanded the Africa Korps and was given the nickname "Desert Fox" and was well respected by the Allies."
SWMBO: "No. Not another German general. You know what happened last time with Panzer."
Me: "Panzer wasn't a german general, it means tank or armor."
SWMBO: (Gives the Look)
Me: "Okay. Okay. How about Cromwell?"
SWMBO: "No German generals."
Me: "Nope, not a German. He's British."
SWMBO: "No."
Me: "Churchill?"
SWMBO: "No."
Me: "Bradley."
SWMBO: "That's good, but what if we get a girl."
Me: "What about Emcha?"
SWMBO: "That's cute. Where's it mean?"
Me: "It's Russian."
SWMBO: "Is it a tank or used in tanks."
Me: (long pause) "Maybe..."

Now the above is all tongue-in-cheek. My wife is very supportive (yes, tolerant as well) of my obsession (er, hobby). Perhaps I did throw good FOW names at her over the months leading up to finding a dog. I think Steve of WWPD has a dog named Scout or Recon or both. My friend (Armored Cav veteran) named his cat Sabot, as is Armored Piercing Fin Stabilised Discarding Sabot (APFSDS).

In the end, once we got her, her personality made the name choice easy. We love her and couldn't be happier.