Scavenger; Or, Anatomy of a Name

I believe allusions have been made to a 'rotund and indolent' beagle.  The beagle in question is Scavenger who, over the years, has grown into quite the chunker.  Observe:

My memories of the day Scavenger joined the family are quite vivid.  I had been watching Christian and Chelsea while the parentals were out of town, and they came home with news.  'We bought a dog!'  I went with them to pick him up from the breeder.  He was the last remaining puppy of his litter, and a teeny tiny pup he was, to leave a concerned mother.


I think there's a fairly typical scene that occurs when a new puppy is introduced to the children of a family: smiles, excitement, laughter, shouts of 'hip, hip, hooray' and so on.  That is not what happened at our house.  Alternatively, Christian (who had his heart set on a German Shepherd) burst into tears and asked us to take the dog away as he didn't 'want him to feel bad.'  Then Chelsea followed suit.  The cause of her tears?  She feared the dog would be favored over our poor cat.  In hindsight, her intuition was spot on.


One crying puppy.  Two crying children.


The parentals: 'Um...you're welcome?'


All this greatly influenced The Great Naming of the Dog Conference.  Despite my enthusiastic lobbying for conferring the name Pippin upon him (because really, which dog doesn't want to be named after a hobbit), poor Christian was allowed to grant him the moniker he had been saving for the German Shepherd of his dreams: Scavenger.  He's also known as The Beag, Scav, Scavvy or Scavengero the Wonder Dog.  Take your pick.  He barks and barks and barks.  But she's the sweetest canine around.  

Look at those puppy dog eyes.  

 Keeping the paws squeaky clean.

The Beag.

He's looking uncharacteristically contemplative.

Chelsea, who took these photos, 

has informed me there was food involved.