I’m not sure when it happened, but I just noticed it today. I don’t even know why it surprised me; after all, our animals have each renamed themselves at some point.

A year into her doggie life RC became Sister. Six months after moving in with us our Lab, Mazzie, morphed into Pooh Bear. The cat my daughter named Chandler now answers to Stink. The only one who kept his original name was our oldest cat, Mr. Dithers, and it just simply fits.

Today I went to the back door to call the dogs in and yelled, “Sister, Pooh, Bubba.” Bubba! Where the heck did that come from? When did Nick become Bubba, and when did he start answering to it?

Bubba? This is not a redneck dog! I affectionately call him my “little Lord Font Leroy”. Being a Lab Husky mix he’s a rather large, fuzzy fellow, but he is also delicate, poised, very gentle, and obviously use to the finer things in life.

He also slipped right into our seriously redneck family, with all its noise and chaos, like there had been a space waiting for him all along. And now we’re calling him Bubba.

Bubba?!