The entire household has been depressed. But my stepdad and Riley the Wonder Dog have been hit hardest. While my husband and I had to go to work, they didn’t, and they spent a lot of time thinking about Daisy.

And moping. A lot.

One day, I decided to look on Petfinder.com, as that was where we found Riley. But I was just going to look.

Seriously.

Stop it! I’m just looking.

You’re not buying this, are you?

What I discovered is that people name their dogs a lot of strange things.

When I was growing up, there were a lot of “typical” dog names: Lady, Duke, King, Queen, Ginger, Duchess, Rascal, Daisy, Peanut, and even Snoopy.

But just as kids names have changed from easy ones like “Mike” and “Sally” to things that are practically unpronounceable, so have names for the canine set.

Don’t get me wrong—I grew up with one dog, and for a time, we had another. My mom wanted to name her. She called the new dog “Nomo,” which stood for “No mo’ pets.” That’s because besides the two dogs, I had fish, hermit crabs, and guinea pigs.

Yeah, it was a little nuts.

Back to these crazy dog names. Some are funny, but not so bad. Like “Sir Ian the Pug” and even “Baby Ernie.” But one called “Baby Vegas”? Seriously?

I began to take notes as I paged through the site. I found that you can often organize these strange names into categories. And you can learn a lot about people by what they name their pets. It’s not all pretty.

Some folks like to name their dogs after celebrities. During my perusal, I found Vanna White, Denzel, Zsa Zsa, Beyonce, Crystal Gail, Blanche Devereaux, and even a Monty Hall.

What this tells me is that folks who watched a lot of TV in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s need to start keeping their pets and not putting them up for adoption. Seems like folks watching “The Golden Girls,” “Wheel of Fortune,” and old episodes of “Let’s Make a Deal” seem to have named their pets while the tube was on.

It gets better, though. Stay with me here.

Quite a number of owners name their dogs after alcoholic beverages. I read about a Vodka, a Jack Daniels, and even a more general one named Brewski.

Can you imagine if one of these got loose, and a police officer came up to the people looking for the dog?

Police officer: What are you folks doing out here on the side of the road? Isn’t it a little late for hiking?

Person: It’s okay, officer. We were just looking for Jack Daniels…

I’m guessing that wouldn’t end well.

Some people name their dogs after, well, other people. I spotted a George, Vinnie, and an Agatha.

Imagine calling out another person’s name while looking for your dog at a crowded event.

Again, I don’t see that ending well.

A few names just defy categories. Like Swiffer, the dog. Or Bacon, the dog. And even Stinkweed, the dog.

As for the last two I’m sharing, I give them credit for creativity.

The first is Dog.

Perhaps, at first glance, that doesn’t seem creative to you. But it’s not pronounced like it looks. It’s pronounced dee-O-gee.

Kind of like how you say you’re going to Target, but pronounce it Tar-Jay.

And the final one? Hooshee, the dog. Pronounced “Who’s She?” This came about because when people would come and visit the dog as a puppy, they would say, “Who’s She?” The name stuck.

As for us, we’re sticking with the name our new pup came with—Maggie.

Oops…but I’m just looking. I’m not going to adopt right now…

Michele Wojciechowski, when she’s not pretending that her family didn’t just get another dog, writes “Wojo’s World® from Baltimore.

Regular readers of this column are familiar with our dogs who, until Riley the Wonder Dog, preferred to go by pseudonyms to protect their privacy. Snoopy was actually named Scooby, Steve was really Rascal, and our sweet girl Rose was really named Daisy.

Four years ago, Scooby passed. Rascal followed a little over two years ago. At ages 15 and 17, they lived good, long lives. Most recently, our beautiful Daisy girl followed them at nearly 14.

In her memory, I’m going to tell you some funny and wonderful things about Daisy that made her such a great girl.

My late Mom, Bev, adopted Daisy from what was then the City pound. After she and my stepdad finished filling out the paperwork, the man in charge said, “Thanks for saving a life.” My Mom responded that we always adopted rescues. He said, “No, you really did save her life. She was scheduled to be put down tomorrow.” We never forgot how close we had come to not having Daisy. And neither did she.

Daisy was only eight months old, and, at the time, the vet said she looked like she was part Old English Sheepdog. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that we saw a photo of a LabraDoodle and realized that’s most likely what Daisy was.

Didn’t matter to us either way. She was just a big white ball of fuzzy love.

As a puppy, she was, well, not a “good” dog. She got into everything. When she had done something really bad, my Mom would yell and remind her, “I saved you from death row! Now be good!”

Daisy would respond by smiling and wagging her tail, which made it super difficult to stay mad at her.

Daisy, who also went by the names Daisy Girl and Daisy Mary (like most kids, she needed a middle name to yell, so she would know when you were really mad at her!), was the only dog I’ve had who loved hugs. When you would lean down and hug her, she would rest her head on your shoulder and smile a mile wide.

When we moved into our present home, Daisy showed us how inquisitive she was. She would spend hours and hours outside exploring. This, at first, drove my stepdad nuts, as they had lived in the city and had a small, concrete back yard. Even though she was safely enclosed in this new, grass-covered, bigger yard, he would freak out if she stayed outside too long. Many times, I’d see him slowly running across the yard, yelling at her to get into the house. She would glance back and smile as if to say, “Ha, ha, you can’t catch me!”

One day, I heard Daisy barking like crazy out back. But it wasn’t her “danger” bark; it was the happy one.

When I went out, I caught her batting a toad around like it was a new toy. And she didn’t even like to play with toys. She would sniff the toad, it would jump, and she would bat at it with her paw.

“Daisy, no!” I yelled. After a few attempts, I caught the shell-shocked amphibian, and carried him out front, placing him in the garden.

About 15 minutes later, I heard Daisy barking again. I opened the back door only to see her batting around the same toad.

“DAISY MARY!!!!”

She stopped. But only long enough to say, “Look what I got!”

Again, I rescued the toad, but put him into the woods that time. I gave him a parting message, “If I were you, I would hop away. And fast!”

Daisy was always hungry and stole food anywhere and anytime she could. From other dogs, from people’s plates at cookouts, from the trash, and from little kids who were more on her level, height-wise. One Easter, we caught her in the dining room. While she wouldn’t jump on the table, she did spend most of the day sitting next to it, staring intently at the ham, desperately trying to will it off the plate and into her mouth.

Thankfully, she never mastered telekinesis.

Although she was never a momma herself, Daisy was the ultimate “Momma” dog. She loved babies, toddlers, children, and puppies. If another dog yelped, she was right on the scene, smelling all over him, making sure he was okay. She would play with our friends’ kids, and chase them all over the house and yard. And they would respond in kind.

Last summer, she discovered that barking made our friends’ daughter laugh. So she kept it up. (If you want to see the video of this, go to wojosworld.com, under the recent post at My Life with Riley.)

Daisy hated baths and would “make herself heavy” as my mom used to say, by planting her feet firmly in the tub and leaning into the person washing her. Anytime Daisy got a bath, everyone else got soaked.

If you stopped petting her, she would take her front foot and keep pawing at you until you started back up. If Rascal or Scooby aggravated her, she would hit them in the face with her paw. Gently, though, just enough to get them to stop. And Riley, well, him she would chase because, like she never wanted to stop being petted, he never wanted to stop playing.

Over all the years I knew Daisy, every time we would ask, “Do you want to go?” she would go ballistic—barking and running around and jumping. Until the last time. Her body had begun to give out, and we all knew what was coming. When I asked if she wanted to go, she just stood up and waited to go to the car.

There are so many more stories about this great girl, but I only have so many words here.

Rest well, Daisy Girl. I hope that wherever you are, you can bat at Rascal and Scooby, run through lush, green grass, and finally make that ham come off the table straight to you.

Michele Wojciechowski, when she’s not missing her Daisy Girl, writes “Wojo’s World® from Baltimore. 

I loved my big sister, even when I was being a little “punk” with her. She knew I loved her and that I was only playing.

I want to share a couple of thoughts about her, if that’s ok with you.

I was so happy when my Mommy and Daddy adopted me, and found that I had a big sister to play with and aggravate. She was bigger than me, but I didn’t let that bother me…nope, not one bit. I would take my toys, and run over to her while she was sleeping, drop my toys on her to wake her up, just to get her to bark at me (and sometimes chase me around until I would leave her alone).

I loved chasing her around the yard, and having her chase me back. I used to nip at her tail, just so she’d turn around and growl at me. I’d throw my toys at her, and then stare at her and bark. When she’d had enough, she would lay down on top of the toy so I couldn’t get it. She showed me who was REALLY in charge.

If my people would forget to pick up my food bowl if I hadn’t eaten (which happens…sometimes I am just not hungry then), Daisy would come over and eat my food. She LOVED to do that. Again, I think she was letting me know who was boss!

I am so sad that she is gone, but I know, that wherever she is, she is running around, playing, and really having a lot of fun with the people and pets that are there.

Goodbye Daisy–I love you!

I’m not a good singer. At all. You don’t want me singing at your wedding—unless, that is, you want to drive everyone out of the church or ceremony holding their ears and screaming.

Brad is not a fan of public speaking. I joke that he would rather be standing in front of a firing squad than a room full of people.

On the flipside, he’s good at so many things—math, balancing our checkbook, dealing with the little things in life that drive me nuts…

Oh, and doing impressions. He’s really good at mimicking cartoon voices and characters from movies. He’s scarily good at voicing Forrest Gump.

But for a man who is so smart and so logical, I just don’t get one thing: why he feels the need to haul every single bag out of our car after we’ve gone shopping.

All. At. Once.

He does this every single time we go shopping. Doesn’t matter if it’s from the grocery store or the mall (his least favorite destination on the planet—next to that room full of people to speak in front of), the hardware store or the warehouse club–Brad wants to make the least amount of trips as humanly possible.

I guess on one hand, I can understand his rational. The more he carries, the fewer trips he makes from the car to the house. But we have a garage. So it’s not like he has to carry all the water for our family across miles and miles of hot, savage desert to keep us from dying.

Nope. All he has to do is take it from the garage into the kitchen, and then we unpack things and take them to wherever they belong in the house.

He has to walk a grand total of about 10 feet, at most.

Yet he will put 27 bags on each arm to drag them all into the house at once. And this is never a good thing.

I married a man, not a pack mule.

It’s also not like I’m sitting inside the house with a whip, ready to beat him into his next chore. Oftentimes, I’m carrying bags into the house too. But only a couple. Why? Because I’ve seen what happens otherwise.

One time, when we lived in a townhome, he was carrying a ton of paper bags in his arms. (This was before we all began using those reusable bags that we all take to the store, then accidentally leave in the trunk, so we now end up using plastic bags more than we want to anyway. Um, not that I do this…ever.) One of the things we had bought was a baguette to have with dinner. Even though it was in its own little bag, it was stuck in the paper bag with all the other groceries and sticking out at the top. You know, like it always is in the movies.

Just as he got near our front door, the bags shifted, and as he tried to grab them all to keep them from falling, the baguette became a projectile and shot like a rocket out of the bag and straight into our garden.

I was coming back out of the house to help. I saw the look on his face. “The five-second rule does NOT apply to bread that landed in the dirt,” I said.

I know him all too well.

And while I’ve told him many times over the years that trying to carry everything at once is not a good thing, he still does it.

Perhaps he is a pack mule. He’s certainly as stubborn as one…

Michele Wojciechowski, when she’s not praying that they don’t start a stupid reality show about folks who can carry the most bags from their car to the house, writes “Wojo’s World® from Baltimore. 

Because when you look outside your office window in late March and see more than four inches of snow on the ground, with more falling, well, you just need to comment on it.

Really? I mean, seriously? Sure, we finally get some snow—some good, wet, snowball-packing snow, in spring?

I love all four seasons. It’s one of the many reasons why I’ve chosen to live in Maryland. But after we missed having a “blizzard” a few weeks ago, I’ve been done with winter.

It was cold, we had some dustings, and now I was more than ready for spring.

I think everything has been ready for spring. Flowers have been coming up. The Orioles are going to begin their season next week. Trees are budding.

And then—BAM!—school closings, treacherous roads, and snow. Lots and lots of snow.

One good thing has come of this: I’m finally going to get some use out of the new snow boots that I bought for myself two years ago. They’ve remained in the box in the hall closet gathering dust for many winters now.

As for our dog, Riley, he’s having a blast. He’s never seen snow like this, and so far, all morning, he’s been running back and forth across the yard like he’s on fire.

The only problem is that since he’s never played in snow, he’s freaking out at the little balls of snow that are sticking to his fur. When I went to let him inside this morning, he was ripping at his front legs and shaking his head. Then I realized what was going on. After bringing him in and removing the snow balls, I put him right back out, and the running back and forth commenced again.

I haven’t made a snowman this year because of the aforementioned previous lack of the great white stuff. But now I still haven’t decorated out front for Easter. So I’m taking advantage of this rare pre-Easter week snow and making a Snow Bunny.

And, no, that doesn’t mean some chickee poo dressed in tight snow pants at a ski resort.

I’m making a Snow Easter Bunny. I may even make a bunch of eggs. Snow Eggs, but for Easter, you know?

The craziest thing about all of this is that both my husband and I have been upset because we couldn’t get to the yardwork. I was upset with myself because I hadn’t gotten around to calling my landscape designer friend about helping me figure out where to plant flowers. My husband hadn’t cleaned up the yard to get ready for the lawn mowers. And we hadn’t started working on the lawn, which desperately needs to be reseeded.

But for today, at least, it’s covered in snow. A beautiful white, think blanket of it. So we can’t do any yardwork yet.

In fact, I can’t even think about yardwork. Why? Because I’m back to thinking about Christmas and sledding and the snowball fights of my youth.

Perhaps there is a good reason to have an Easter-week snow after all…

Michele Wojciechowski, when she’s playing in the snow with her dog instead of working, writes “Wojo’s World”® from Baltimore.

I was featured in a Baltimore Sun article about my book launch event that benefits The Catholic High School of Baltimore by Mary Gail Hare http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/bs-gl-goodworks-wojo-20120907,0,2773270.story

Featured in The Weekend Funny 5-Funny New Book Alert! on Barb Best’s humor blog: http://www.barbbest.com/