Her name is Malu.

Today, my mom and I went down to the Humane Society of South Mississippi (HSSM) to look for a new puppy to replace our last dog Doji, who disappeared in her old age (we don't know if she ran away or was taken, but we haven't heard of any sightings since she left). The task was, as always, a tough one. I don't know how many of you have made the trip to your local Humane Society (HS) yet, but it really is tough to walk away from one without taking something cute and furry with you.

We went in looking for a puppy because it is so much better to get them when they are still incredibly cute and they haven't developed all sorts of difficult-to-break habits. It is also nice to be able to select your own name for a new puppy instead of going with the one that it got from the HS workers. There were all sorts of adorable puppies trying their best to make you fall in love with them but the one that stood out most to me was a little female black Mastiff-mix (we suspect Rottweiler) who wasn't entirely concerned with making a show. She came out to investigate my mom and I because her brothers, both adopted, seemed really excited. She looked very sweet and was content curling up right against the gate of the pen and snuggling with one of her syblings. I went back and forth between a Golden Retreiver puppy named Jake who was much more exciteable but when it came down to it, she was just sociable enough to make a good family pet and just calm enough for my mom to be able to handle her when she is full grown.

Female Mastiffs can grow to be about 28-35 inches at the shoulder and usually end up weighing-in at about 150-200 lbs. For those of you that can't quite picture how big that is, that's a dog whose shoulder nearly comes up to the knob on your average door and who weighs about the same as the average adult male. In other words, Malu has the potential to become an absolutely massive beast. If you still need help, imagine "The Beast" from The Sandlot. Here are some good pictures of Mastiffs with kids. They are great family pets.

Enough sidetracking, back to the pup at hand. When we adopted Malu, we knew we had to come up with a good name for her because she had only been at the shelter long enough to get the name "2 of 3" (which, humorously, is her name on the paperwork and the form letter that the Humane Society gave us). I have been thinking for a long time about the name Mela, short for Entwidomela, which is Setswani for "He who greets with fire". Obviously, I couldn't name this little girl that, even though I am sure she will be plenty intimidating at full size.

My quest, of course, turned to the Internet and the extension of my body that is Google. I immediately settled on the idea of an exotic name, something from another language, preferably something African, Arabic, Hebrew, or one of the Polynesian languages. I went to several baby name websites, searching for adjectives that described her personality (dogality?) before I landed on the Hawaiian name, Malu, which translates to, among other things, shade, shelter, peace, control, strength. These are very much words that describe the breed in general and from the admittedly short amount of time I spent with her, I'd say they fit my baby girl too.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures yet because I didn't want to go snapping pictures of this nervous little puppy the very first time she met me but I promise I will post some of those soon enough. She goes into surgery first thing tomorrow morning to be fixed and we get to take her home tomorrow afternoon.

Like I said, I promise I'll have plenty of pictures up as soon as she is feeling up for a photoshoot. Check back tomorrow sometime after 4:30 central time. PEACE.

Update: I have a few pictures of my new baby girl. You can check them out at my photosite. I'll continue to add more over the next couple of days. Enjoy!