Vuh-gee-na

It's very important, in this post, that when you read the word, "Vagina" (proper), that it is pronounced, "vuh-gee-na".

Good Lord the keywords and search phrases that will bring people to my site after this post...

I don't think I've ever told the story of our dog, Vagina. At some point in my late teenaged years, perhaps my junior year in high school, my family moved from our house "in town" out to the sticks, or, rather, to The Farm. The house was about five or so miles out of Hometown, proper, and on about 3 acres of land. We didn't plant or grow anything there, nor did we have livestock of any kind, but everyone called it "the farm" for some reason. We did, however, have animals.

In the beginning, we had Honey, my own personal sweet angel of a dog, the sweetest dog I've ever had. (I'm including Jack here. Seriously, Honey was a sweet thing. We only ever heard her bark once. And she liked to cuddle with you.) Honey was half schnauzer, half poodle -- a "snoodle", if you will. We rescued her from a REAL farm (with horses and all kinds of livestock) where she had to fight for her food and was never bathed. I loved that dog and she loved me back - I loved her despite her decline in her later years -- her odor, the loss of control of her bladder. And she loved me so much that, when I went to college, she went to sleep and never woke up. That sounds really morbid, but that's what happened. She grieved herself to death. At least this is what my parents told me.

Honey was an "inside" dog.

Now, we also had a couple of cats. One disappeared once we moved to The Farm, found a better place to live, I'm sure. The other one, Allie, liked to play with the "outside" dogs. (I'll explain those later.) She was adventurous. Unfortunately, I watched her die in the street, she was hit by a car. As I was driving my 1976 Buick Riviera into the driveway at The Farm, I saw her lying there. Poor thing...I didn't know what to do, so I ran inside, got the cordless phone, called my mother, and ran back out to the street to watch the hideousness, asking my mom over and over again, "What do I do??? She's dying here!"

Later, we buried Allie on The Farm, and later that evening we noticed that the outside dogs found her, resurrected her, and kept playing with her. Even after her death she was a good time for those dogs. Sweet Allie.

Anyway, the outside dogs. I was sitting here, trying to remember how we came to own these dogs, but I can't remember all of their stories. One black "lab" with some sort of nervous condition -- he peed himself anytime you got near him -- not out of fear, more out of excitement. Then there was the gnawing and chewing of his own fur coat. He was just not a smart dog, I'd say. I believe someone in our neighborhood "in town" had convinced my brother that he was a smart black Labrador retriever, and we ended up with the dog at The Farm.

The second of the outside dogs was Lee - a rotweiller mix of a big dog. Lee had the beautiful black and tan markings of a rotweiller, but the build and face of another dog altogether. I've been sitting here trying to remember how we came to own Lee, but I can't, for the life of me, remember. Maybe it goes without saying that I wasn't in any way "close" to the outside dogs.

My dad owned restaurants for most of my upbringing. When I was in high school he decided he was tired of working for himself, and went to work as a traveling salesman, selling restaurant supplies. He traveled all over east Texas, stopping at every restaurant establishment to meet the people, maybe share a cup of coffee with them, maybe even a meal. Dad really loved these people. I saw him in action a few times, and his rapport with these people was not due to the bait of a bonus or a commission - he truly enjoyed the company of other people and their stories.

The particular day that our third outside dog came home to join us, Dad met a new face on the job. Entering a new restaurant and being introduced to the manager, Dad, in his usual heavy Cajun accent said, "Hi. I'm Johnny Brian, nice to meet you."

"My name's Vagina."

"What's that?"

"Vagina."

"And how do you spell that, exactly?"

"V-A-G-I-N-A, Vagina."

"That's what I thought. Nice to meet you, Vagina."

And so it was, Dad arrived home that day and we told him about the new dog that we'd acquired. As soon as he saw her, he said, "Your name's Vagina", then he told us the story of the remarkable woman he'd met a few hours earlier.

The truth is, Vagina the dog walked up to our house and called The Farm "home" without even asking us. But she was a good dog, sweet and quiet. She was not pretty. She had awful teeth and an ugly coat...but my dad loved her. Yes, Dad loved Vagina. Not as much as he loved Poop, though. That's a whole other story for another day.

When we had guests, Vagina took on a different name, just "Gina". And when my dad died and my mom had to sell The Farm, Gina jumped into the car of a woman at my mom's yard sale. Mom didn't yet know what she was going to do with all the outside dogs when she moved back into town...so when the woman asked if she could keep her, mom was grateful for the offer.

"What's her name?" she asked.

"Her name is Gina. I'd love for you to give her a good home," my mom said.