Happy Monday Friends! Alright I’m going to just cut right to it: I know I promised you this post on Friday and well, obviously that didn’t happen! There were two reasons this post was delayed. First off, it physically was difficult to write. My furry friend wouldn’t stop eating my laptop, typing on my keyboard, and jumping on my face. Ugh. Clearly we’re still both in the learning stages on how this whole thing should work (she needs to learn that my laptop isn’t one of her countless toys, and I need to learn to time manage better so I don’t let my blog time infringe on her play time!). Oops! Secondly, while I gave myself Friday as a deadline I still had no idea what I wanted to name her. Honestly, I still don’t feel great about her name.

Why did no one warn me choosing a name would be so difficult?! Obviously a puppy and a baby aren’t the same thing…but I see all these expecting bloggers on Instagram who have a name picked long before meeting their baby. So I kind of thought that would happen for me with my lil’ puppy. Wrong. The moment I got onto the list for my puppy (there was in fact a waiting list!), I started brainstorming names. At first I wanted a food name, but then I started leaning more towards a human name. Biscuit, oatmeal, peaches, those were all options, but the name I really liked was Lettie (after my favorite character in Good Behavior- if you’re not watching Good Behavior, you should be!). Long story short, no one (and I mean no one) liked the name Lettie.

The next four months were a serious struggle in the name department, I spent hours (maybe I shouldn’t admit this…) online searching through hundreds of names trying to see if one would click. I ended up really liking the name Cooper, but once my puppy was born and I saw pictures of her I felt like Cooper wasn’t a good fit.

I wanted a name that could have a nickname associated with it. I think this need stems from my own name, Helen, which you can’t shorten to something cute, not like I would have been able to do with Cooper (to Coop). So as silly as it might have seemed to so many people when I said “but you can’t shorten Biscuit to anything (or anything good at least), it was a serious “must-have” on my name checklist.

Looking back one of the largest stressors came from all the name suggestions that people were sharing with me. I hesitate to admit this as I don’t want to come off as being unappreciative, but instead of finding inspiration from these suggestions they acted like an added stressor and reminder that I still had no idea what name I was going to pick.

Meeting my puppy for the first time (down in middle of nowhere Virginia) was amazing! We instantly clicked and I so hoped in that moment a name would click too. It didn’t. I didn’t freak out though. Instead, I thought a name would come to me over the course of the next few days. But guess what, it didn’t.

My darling little puppy has been home with me for 10 days today. I let my boyfriend’s soccer team vote on her name on Friday. After being given a few options, the vast majority of the team chose Millie (short for Amelia Earhart). Millie is a cute name. I really wanted to stick with it because I made the decision to keep with whatever the soccer team chose, but the past few days I’ve been calling her Millie and it just doesn’t feel right. Ugh. So spoiler alert, she’s not a Millie.

I had a puppy once prior, when I was 5 years old. Unfortunately I can’t remember how my naming process went with Cookie. I know I tested a lot of names out, but I also think that once I thought of Cookie it just clicked. But this poor puppy, nothing has clicked with her.

While I wouldn’t say anyone has really given me a hard time about not naming my 9 week old puppy yet, I definitely have felt some pressure. And I get it! I know my puppy should have a name by this point and I know the longer I delay the worse it is for her to learn one. But I don’t know, there’s just something about her that is begging for the absolute perfect name that fits her personality. From the first time I tried calling her Millie I knew it wasn’t for her. Millie is a cute name, but I don’t think she’s a Millie and I think she realizes that.

So what the heck did I name her?! Drum roll please….

Meet, Ranger.

Of all the difficult things I was prepared for when getting a puppy, naming her was not one of them. Was there something wrong with me that I couldn’t seem to find the perfect name for her? Was I overthinking it? Probably. I mean, definitely, but then again, her name is a big deal! I love my little fluff ball so so much and I want to love her name just as much! When I called her Millie it just didn’t sit right. So maybe I’m crazy with this whole thing. I can’t imagine someone else is struggling with this or has struggled with naming their puppy the way I have, but maybe I’m wrong. If you had a tough time naming your dog please reach out and share your story!

Hopefully this post didn’t disappoint you too much? I’ve since edited this post from the time it went live at 5:30am this morning. She’s definitely a Ranger, her personality is so spunky and sometimes when she has a lot of energy she will leap across the couch to pounce on you for attention. So yeah. Ranger it is. Funny enough, Ranger was the first tame that initially came to mind, as I was driving my Range Rover down to North Carolina this past summer thinking how badly I wanted a puppy.