In my most recent post, I introduced you to this guy. His name is Radar and I am in love with him.

He’s approximately 18 months old (no way to verify as he was rescued as a stray in Houston, Texas this past April). He’s a German Shepherd mix, and we suspect part of that mix is black lab (which to me is a very very good thing as I’ve always thought they were the best breeds ever. Besides Bichon Frises of course: RIP Homer. He passed just before Christmas 2013).

Now, if you have been following my blog for a while, you may recall this post, nearly a year ago, where I whined about how I was yearning for something new in my life. I was mostly referring to my wish to adopt a dog.

It took more time than expected for Hubs to truly come around to the idea of becoming dog owners again, but I am grateful that it did.  If we had rushed into it, say 3 or 6 months ago, we wouldn’t have wound up with this pup.

Let me tell you the story of how he came to be ours.

We stalked petfinder.com for a couple of weeks. We discussed the type of dog we both wanted: medium sized, on the younger side but not a puppy; friendly, smart, and trainable. We thought we were going to adopt a similar looking dog named Kodiak; alas, he was adopted by another family before we got a chance to meet him.

But then! An email appeared from the foster mom telling us there was a chance that Kodiak would be relinquished due to the child in the family possibly having allergies to him. After a couple of days and no updates, we decided to resume our search and found another GSD mix named Finn who we thought would be a perfect fit.

On 6/1 (coincidentally, eldest spawn’s 27th birthday), we drove out to the mountains to meet Finn. It turned out that there were two other dogs up for adoption at this same home for us to meet. We visited with the foster parents for a good long while, the whole time Finn checking us out from afar but never getting very close. While handsome, healthy, and playful, he was quite the skittish pup.

Then the foster mom brought out “Leroy”. He was also a German Shepherd mix, but with much more prominent “radar” ears (you do know where this is going, right?). He ran up to us immediately, tail wagging. He gave us kisses then ran off to play with the other two dogs.

It was abundantly clear that we had found our canine match.

So we brought “Leroy” home that same day. His foster parents told us that the folks at the shelter he was at named him “Leroy”. On the drive home (of course with a trip to PetSmart first for a crate-which was nylon and is already destroyed but that’s another story), we pondered changing his name. We didn’t settle on anything really, and figured we would just go with “Leroy”. But after about 24 hours and my MIL stating he didn’t look like a “Leroy” and the fact that the old song “Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown” was stuck in my head, which felt like a bad omen to me, we decided “Ringo” was going to be his name.

You know, after my favorite Beatle (only sorta-what right minded Beatles fan could pick just one favorite?)

So the following Monday we took “Ringo” to his first vet appointment (where he barked so loud, tail wagging mind you, that we had to be placed in an exam room as to not scare the other dogs and people any longer). We presented him as “Ringo” though the vet tech referred to him as “Boogaloo” (which truly endeared me to her).

Then we came home. Hubs started tossing around the idea of re-naming him once again. After all, he hadn’t had enough time to get his doggy self accustomed to any one particular name by this point in time. Hubs suggested “Doppler”. Seriously. Did I mention he was a meteorologist? I countered with “Radar”. We agreed with those awesome ears, which point in opposite directions at times when there are new sounds to process, this was a fitting name. So we are sticking with it.

Now we just need to call the vet’s office to let them know we are big ‘ol flakes who tried out three different names for their new dog.