Evolution Of A Name: A Tribute To My Big Red Dog And His Ever Evolving Very Long Name
Trigger warning: Pet loss. This is a story of a deep love that ends in a deep loss. Please don’t read if you’re in a bad place.
Today would have been Crixus's 9th birthday and I wanted to do something to honor him. I actually wrote this story a few years ago intending for it to be just that, a silly little story about my silly big dog with his silly list of names. I never imagined that by the time I was ready to publish it that it would be posted as a tribute instead.
Opening this story from my draft folder was nearly impossible, editing everything to past tense hurts more than words can describe and adding the final bit to the end nearly broke me but I wanted to be brave for him one last time.
Happy Birthday my big red boy. Wherever you are, know that I miss you every second of every day and I will love you forever. ❤️
My dog's name was Crixus. How do you pronounce that? RICHARD. The C is silent.
I know what you’re thinking, that doesn’t make any sense, and you’re right. It’s actually kind of a funny story so stick with me here.
Nine years ago we adopted a true GERMAN, German Shepherd puppy out of a litter of just three pups. As a result of the small litter, he was huge for his age and when we brought him home he was this fat ball of black fluff, more hair than dog and he was adorable.
We knew we had to name him something badass, a strong name, something to grow into because we met his dad and our little fluffball was going to be a giant someday.
We were torn between two names and after much debate we settled on the name Crixus. It was the name of a massive, muscled, super badass gladiator from the tv show Spartacus and we thought it would suit him perfectly, once he grew into it.
But when we received his official registration papers in the mail some months later, we discovered that the AKC required him to have more than one name so we ended up getting to use that second name after all.
And so our teeny tiny black fluff ball became Crixus Kratos.
Half gladiator and half god of war (Kratos came from the video game God Of War) our pup had no choice but to grow into a big badass with two namesakes like that.
Crixus did indeed grow into his name(s) and as he grew, the black puppy fluff faded and was replaced by thick red fur and the bigger he got, the longer his list of nicknames became. More often than not, our little Crixus was Crickerbear or Crix which was helpful when introducing him to passing strangers who had the bizarre desire to know a random strangers dogs name.
Little known fact, most people couldn’t pronounce his name. Crixus. It doesn’t seem to matter how slowly or clearly we said it. CRIK-SIS. Say it with me, CRIK. SIS. It's easy, right? Well, apparently not, because in all eight years we had him, only a handful of people could manage his tongue twister of a name. Maybe our brilliant, perfect name wasn't so perfect after all.
The nickname evolution continued as the years went on and Crickerbear turned into Crickersaurus, which naturally morphed into Crickersaurus Rex.
Our majestic gladiator German Shepherd was now a dinosaur.
Soon we were just calling him Saurus, and eventually, he was just Sorey.
We really enjoyed hiking and Sorey was always out on trail with us. He was the best trail hound and delighted in the dirt between his toes and the wind in his thick red hair. He was a natural! Until it came to switchbacks that is, those baffled him entirely, he simply could not grasp the concept.
Sorey was born deep in the middle of cow country and we would joke about what the dairy air did to his developing puppy brain cells because there were derpy dogs and then there was Sorey.
As a Shepherd, his number one priority in life was shep-HERD-ing his family even if that meant herding us to our doom because we tripped over our overly concerned leader. Sorey liked to lead but he also had to HERD which I’d imagine was quite the conundrum.
For Sorey, it meant keeping an extra watchful eye on us so he frequently looked back to make sure we were playing follow the leader.
Except, most of the time he didn’t know exactly where we were going but his biological imperative insisted he must lead us there, so he did the next best thing. He guessed. And more often than not, he guessed wrong. Because he looked back so often, he ended up going super slow, or stopping randomly which then slowed us down. So we'd try to pass him to get to where we were actually going in a timely manner and of course that would be when he turned to look so we’d run smack into him and nearly trip to our doom.
So when we were out hiking, if the trail had any elevation gain, there were always switchbacks to make the climb a little easier. For everyone EXCEPT Sorey. Switchbacks made his ability to keep track of his pack difficult at best.
One second he was leading and we were all on the same trail and the next second he turned to make sure we were all following along like good little doglings and we were suddenly, seemingly on a different trail altogether! And from his higher vantage point, that was an alarming prospect indeed. How would he ever herd us all up again? But then, just as quickly, we would round the switchback and all be on the same level again and his panic would fade. Crisis averted.
Some trails had multiple sections with switchbacks and each time he climbed to the higher trail first, he would turn and panic about his pack being separated and leaderless on a different trail.
Sorey (I think): I swear there was only one trail here a second ago!
Watching the worry play out on his face until we were reunited mere seconds later was hilarious and so Sorey earned his trail name. Switchback Sorey.
When our son Atlas was old enough to start talking, Sorey's list of names grew again. Quicksis and Quickerbear which morphed into Crickerberry, Crickerdink, Crickerdinky, Crickerdinkus and Crickerdinkus Rex. And those were naturally shortened to Dinkus and Dink, then Dinky, Stinky Dinky and Dinky Doodle. Our poor Sorey was having an identity crisis! Who was he really?
In between all the nicknames that lingered the longest like Sorey and Crickerbear, there were the occasional short lived monikers like, Crickersmooch, Smooches, Smoochy, Smoochy Poo, Smoocheroo which of course became Crickeroo, then Cricksey, Cricksers, Crickerbeast and Crickerburt, which naturally evolved into SorBurt, BurtSor and then just, Burt.
Our badass gladiator GERMAN German Shepherd was suddenly going by the name Burt and he even answered to it!
Did I mention that in addition to German Shep-HERD-ing, our Burt was a giant German SHEDDER?
Every morning we’d wake up and our living room looked like wild west with all the dog hair tumbleweeds blowing around as we walked by. Seriously. How was he not bald?
In an effort to combat the insanity, we booked him an appointment at PetSmart to get a bath and a full brush out so maybe, just MAYBE we could take ONE day off from vacuuming up fifteen pounds of apparently unwanted hair that he was scattering willy nilly across the four winds of our living room.
When we arrived for his appointment, as they checked him in, we stumbled once more across the age old tongue-tied can't pronounce his name fiasco. CRIK-SIS. No, No. Too hard. After many spectacularly failed attempts, my patience was wearing thin and I took pity on the exasperated groomer. Call him Crix I said. Chris? No, good lord, you can't pronounce CRICKS either? Say it slowly, KUH-RICKS. Chris. Should have just stuck with Burt.
Well, sorry Chris, in addition to your bath and brush out, they're also going to be squeezing your anal glands until your stink sack is empty. So now our poor Chris had some lady sticking her thumb up his ass while calling him by the wrong name.
Groomer: "Hold still Chris, (snaps on rubber gloves) this will only take a second"
Crixus: "No, you don't understand, I'm not Chris, you've got the wrong dog!"
He came home from his appointment justifiably humiliated while we had a good long laugh about the whole ordeal. It remained an ongoing joke in the family for a long time as we laughed at poor Chris’s expense. We never did take him back because we figured that was enough humiliation for a lifetime.
Time went on and eventually Chris became BurtaChris and then BurtaChris Christy.
Once again we were out hiking and yet another stranger asked for his name as we passed by. Crixus. Princess? Yeah, my giant badass dog with the very visible hanging dick is called Princess. Nailed it.
Honestly, it happened so often we didn't even correct them anymore, we just accepted their absurd mistake and added it to our always growing list of nicknames.
We hiked on with our very manly, very large Princess having a good laugh about it.
In all seriousness though, why does a complete stranger want to know a strangers dog's name? They're never going to see him again, or us, hopefully. They don't touch him, or even get close and sometimes they don’t even wait for the answer. So why ask at all?
(Shouts across the street) "What is your dogs name?"
So you holler back: “Burt!”
Then they just look at you like, you named your beautiful badass German Shepherd Burt? No, not really, but I don’t have years to explain and you're probably too dumb to understand anyway.
One of his more recent nicknames was given while we were on a walk by a bunch of little girls bouncing on their backyard trampoline.
"What’s (bounce) his (bounce) name?"
Crixus. Why? Why do I keep repeating his obviously unpronounceable name? It’s been eight years already, get a clue!
Ricksis? You know what? Close enough.
My nephew later added to the ever growing list of names because when he started talking, Ricksis became Crickeris, which might have been one of his cutest names yet. Crickeris of course turned into Crickerix, then Rix, then Ricksey, Little Ricksey, Little Richard and finally, just Richard.
Richard was prone to ear infections, had been since he was a pup and I was usually able to stay ahead of them but this one snuck right by me. By the time I noticed it, poor Richard had the ear infection to end all ear infections which resulted in a pretty massive ear hematoma from all the scratching and head shaking.
One morning I woke up to find his left ear all swelled up like a balloon and half folded over from the weight. You’re probably thinking water balloon and if you are, you’d be close, except instead of water, think blood. Yuck.
Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, its off to surgery I go!
When surgery day arrived, much to his absolute despair, I dropped poor Richard off at the vet to get his sad little ear fixed. The vet had to sedate him and once he was deep in dreamland, they cut the ear flap open, drained the fluid and then sutured each layer of his ear flaps back together, quilt style. No joke. That’s exactly what the vet told me.
And to add insult to injury, they sent my sad, very drugged, newly quilted dog home with a pile of medicine and the cone of shame and let me tell you, the shame was real! Poor Richard, as if being stitched back together like a blanket wasn’t bad enough.
Richard’s shame lasted a whopping 10 days before he was able to get the cone off and I honestly wasn’t sure he’d ever recover from the humiliation of it all.
To think I had thought him clumsy and goofy before! Once we added that 20 inch (give or take a few) satellite dish around his neck he became a big red wrecking ball. I’m not joking. He crashed into EVERYTHING, including us and usually from behind. All it took was one well placed accidental cone to the back of the knee and we’d suddenly find ourselves on the floor at perfect kissing level.
It was a very long 10 days fraught with danger and not just to us! One time he nearly broke his own neck trying to jump into the back of the car when the edge of the cone caught the edge of the door frame and sent him crashing to the ground in an undignified heap. He was horrified.
We called him Cone Head which was ultimately shorted to Coney but it didn’t stick because we felt so bad for him. The poor guy was so frustrated and defeated those first few days but by the time the second week of his purgatory came around, he was navigating like an old pro.
Richard was NOT happy when I took him back to the vet to get his, what seemed like hundreds of stitches removed, but as soon as they took that horrible plastic cone off his collar, his chocolate brown eyes brightened considerably and he sat up a little straighter, no doubt contemplating how fast he could run as soon as they opened the exam room door.
It was like looking at a new dog seeing him without the cone of shame. On the one hand, I was heartbroken over his poor broken ear, but on the other, his new look was ADORABLE. After awhile the look was just SO HIM, that any time I looked back at any of his old photos I almost didn’t recognize him and thought he looked so strange with both ears up. And so The One Up Pup was born.
We explored all over the state of Washington that year and the inevitable question of the oh so cute One Up Pup’s name always came into play. He got his next nickname from yet another stranger who misheard me (I know, big shocker) and Crixus, (aka Richard) became Cricket.
Yes, naturally. A giant red dog with a teeny tiny insect namesake. Despite being ridiculous, it was actually kind of cute.
The name Cricket took us back to Crix and then Crickerbear just like old times.
It was less than one year later when Crickerbear got his final name in the most heartbreaking way possible.
Crickerbear, or in that particular moment, Crixus Kratos! (like a true parent, I had to bust out the full name whenever he did something he wasn’t supposed to) charged the back fence intent on telling the neighbor dog who was boss when he suddenly yelped and started limping.
I figured it was his age showing and I scolded him for behaving like a pup when he was at the advanced age of eight and warned him that he needed to slow down before he broke a hip.
Little did I know.
That slight limp on his back right leg turned into full leg paralysis by the next morning and suddenly he couldn't stand on his own without being held up. No easy feat for a 100 pound dog.
I called around and most places couldn’t, or wouldn’t squeeze him in on such short notice but I finally got lucky and found an urgent care animal clinic that put us on an on-call waiting list. I spent the rest of that day sitting by his side and alternating between crying into his thick red fur and sending every prayer imaginable up to the great beyond. This couldn’t be it. He was only 8. We were supposed to have more time!
By the end of that day, Crickerbear refused to eat and would only take the occasional lick of water. Even if I couldn’t admit it out loud, that was when I knew in my heart that we were loosing him. I held him and whispered into his one up ear how much I loved him and how thankful I was that he came into our life. I kissed him on my favorite spot, right between those chocolate brown eyes, and I cried. And then I cried some more. And when I was done doing that, I cried all over again.
Nick and I managed to hold him up long enough for him to empty his bladder before we brought him in to bed and the look on his face as we held him up was absolute humiliation.
First thing the next morning we were in the parking lot of the vet clinic, ready and waiting should they call us in early, and to my absolutely terrified relief they did.
The vet did a brief exam and I knew by her demeaner and the expression on her face that we would not be getting good news. She said that his leg had no pulse and that he would never walk again. The news got worse when she listened to his heart and lungs and told us that his internal organs were slowly starting to shut down. Something catastrophic had happened inside his body and no amount of tests or procedures would be able to fix it.
We were devastated. No, that’s not right. Is there a word beyond devastated? Because that’s what we were. Crushed. Broken. Shattered. Destroyed. FUBAR.
Our sweet Crickerbear who was larger than life in both size and personality was slowly fading away right in front of us and we were helpless against the force that was intent on taking him from us.
Faced with two impossible choices, there was really only one option and we let him go quickly and peacefully, holding his big beautiful head in our laps as we said that last heartbreaking goodbye. It was the bravest and the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do and I am absolutely haunted by those last minutes and the sound of what would be his final breath which was the exact moment I felt him leave us forever.
There are no words to describe that kind of agony.
He was here one minute and gone the next, his big beautiful life was reduced to a moment in time, forever a memory. Forever. Crixus.
A week later they gave my Crickerbear back to me in a metal box and it took months before I could even look at it, let alone hold it. And when I finally managed it, my heart broke all over again.
The idea that our entire life, his life, had been reduced to a tiny tin can shattered me and even if I lived to be five hundred, I don't believe I'll ever be able to find all the pieces. He took so much of me with him when he died that I'm not sure what there is left of me to rebuild anyway.
And then I saw it. The envelope that they said held his last paw print ever, the one I haven’t been able to look at until now. But there it was, printed in neat handwriting on the front of the otherwise nondescript envelope, my Crickerbears final nickname.
Crisux.
In the last 262 days I have died a thousand tiny deaths remembering him, us, and the life we had together and for the first time in those 262 days, for just a moment, seeing his final name made me smile through the pouring tears. They couldn’t get his name right even at the end.
My Crisux is gone forever and nobody will ever ask what my big, beautiful, red, GERMAN, German Shepherds name is. Was. He’ll never get another nickname and that fact breaks my heart every single day. But despite the deep, lingering sadness, the memory of my best boy and his endless list of names will live on forever in my mind and more importantly, my heart.
All these months later some people might think that I’m holding on too tight and grieving his loss too deeply because he was “JUST a dog” but that’s where they’d be wrong. He wasn’t JUST a dog, he was MY heart dog and his name was Crixus.
How do you pronounce that?
Crixus, Crixus Kratos, Crickerbear, Crix, Crickersaurus, Crickersaurus Rex, Saurus, Sorey, Switchback Sorey, Quicksis, Quickerbear, Crickerberry, Crickerdink, Crickerdinky, Crickerdinkus, Crickerdinkus Rex, Dinkus, Dink, Dinky, Stinky Dinky, Dinky Doodle, Crickersmooch, Smooches, Smoochy, Smoochy Poo, Smoocheroo, Crickeroo, Cricksey, Cricksers, Crickerbeast, Crickerburt, SorBurt, BurtSor, Burt, Chris, BurtaChris, BurtaChris Christy, Princess, Ricksis, Crickeris, Crickerix, Rix, Ricksey, Little Ricksey, Little Richard, Richard, Cone Head, Coney, One Up Pup, Cricket, Crisux. The C is silent.
