Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read. — Groucho Marx (no relation to Karl)
This is Toby (pretending to ignore the late cat, who in turn, is pretending to ignore him), aka The Tobster, You, Com’ere, The Hound, Black & White Thing and Jayzez Would Ya Get Outta There.
For a black and white dog, Toby had a colourful start to life:
Born on January 11, 2004, in the West-Cork Gaeltacht to a working mother - a Sheepdog - and a Labrador with a roving eye, and some other bits that roamed too, Toby’s early days were spent in a cosy hayshed with his four siblings. These happy days were shattered some weeks later when I called to collect him.
I was invited into the kitchen for breakfast by Big Pat. Big Pat, in his eighties, had just finished milking as many cows as he had seen years and announced he was hungry enough to eat a priest’s arse through a hedge. We were joined by his young lads - one in his late forties, the other just turned fifty. The puppy was brought into the kitchen so we could get acquainted.
He lay on my lap as I chatted with the men. Three tall muscular men who made light work of two pan-loaves, 1kg of butter, 2kg of ham and a huge slab of cheese washed down with two bucket-sized pots of scalding tea. Then it was time to leave.
I put the puppy in a basket on the floor of the car and was driving out the gate when Big Pat came running after me. A tear sneaking from the corner of his eye - it was the wind causing it of course. Lishen, I knew where he were going, so I’ve been shpeaking the bit of English to him.
That got me thinking. Here was a young black dog, wrenched from his family and taken to a place where he wouldn’t understand the language. A place where he would work hard (barking at cars, ignoring cats, sniffing visitors’ crotches etc.) all day, every day, only getting food in return. Somewhere around Watergrasshill the puppy was named Kunta Kinte.
A couple of days later I took him to the vet for a check up. Name? Kunta Kinte. What? Kunta Kinte. That’s hard to say never mind remember. Okay, then, we’ll call him Toby. Same thing. Is it? Trust me. Right so, and what breed is he? Sheeprador. A what? His mammy was a Sheepdog, his daddy a Labrador.
And so the puppy was registered with the vet as Toby Sneeze, Sheeprador.
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A multilingual dog, but does he know Dublinese
Not a word of it, Grannymar - he’s never been near the place.
Labradors are lazy and like to eat their own body weight in pretty much anything that they can get their paws on. Sheepdogs are mad yokes and like to run around really fast after anything that moves.
He must be very conflicted.
He’s mad like a Sheepdog for sure, Caro. Runs faster than a greyhound and can clear 2m high jumps. (Yes, I measured). But like a Lab, he has a great appetite although he doesn’t get overweight. Plus he has a big broad chest like them too. And, again like a Lab, he can be a bit thick - if his water bowl, for example, is moved it takes him days to cop on and he wanders around looking for it.
I’m seeing his big lab chest. He’s got a great big thick tail too. I’ll bet that thing could give you a thump round the knees when he’s happy.
what does Kunta Kinte mean?
My granny had a Gaelic cat called Piseag Beag. Of course that was just her show name. Her real name was Murderous Hellcat Born Of Satan’s Third Rib. My granny spent loving hours assembling old pan fat seeds and nuts into onion bags to hang around the garden for the birds. Only for Piseag to slaughter them all in dawn raids and leave their little wings at the back door. “She doesn’t mean it, do you my Piseag Beag” my granny would say all cooing-like, as she surveyed the corpses in the morning. Piseag would purr adoringly to her and turn with a glint in her evil eye to continue her mission to single-pawedly wiping out entire species.
Kunta Kinte isn’t an Irish language name/term, just in case you’re thinking that, Sam - there is no letter K in our alphabet. Not even a lowercase k. We were a poor country back when the language was widely spoken and couldn’t afford all 26.
The name, Kunta Kinte is from Alex Haley’s novel Roots. The slave, Kunta Kinte, was renamed Toby by his owner who found his real name too difficult to pronounce, and to strip him of his true identity as was the favourite pastime of American gentlemen back then.
Piseag Beag is similar to the Irish piscín beag meaning little kitten although Murderous Hellcat Born Of Satan’s Third Rib would be a more correct translation. All cats are evil and begin life as evil cunning kittens - offspring of the Devil’s funny bone and other unmentionable parts, like his spetum maybe. Cats kill indiscriminately. Cats should be killed discriminately.
Primal - I really must send you across a kitten to get you over that cat hate thing you’ve got going on there.
I of course, do not have a cat, but two enormous dogs that given a chance would eat a cat as a light snack between meals!
- Hmmm, thinking about it, I think I’ll send the dogs
They’d love to hang with the Tobster and they’ve always expressed their enthusiasm for learning a new language!
I watched the Roots on TV years ago, every episode of it. So I let out a little giggle as I was reading your post. Cool naming story there indeedy! Like you, I hate cats. Ick! Except for my housemate’s cat who actually thought and acted as if he was a dog. He fetched stuff even. Dogs, well I don’t like rat size dogs either. A dog’s gotta have substance, stance and strength. Great post Primal.
I don’t believe you though - you told me before that all the names on your blog have been changed to protect the guilty
^ what he said
White girl ~ Send them on. Send them on. They’ll have to be faster than a rolling O and able to leap capital T in a single bound to keep pace with my lad though.
Gayé ~ Spot on there! Small dogs = cats. Shouldn’t be allowed.
Conorín ~ Toby’s not guilty.
Annie ~ What I said.
Love the story of the name and I really love that picture. Our Toby came pre-named for our convenience. We also call him Toblerone, Toby Nairobi, and Toby Wan Kenobi. (Help me Toby Wan, you’re my only hope….which, you know, doesn’t bode well.)
As far as I remember, Ann, you’re one of the few who heard the story before.
So your Toby came from a convenience (pet-)store? Sorry, couldn’t resist. Might start using the Toby Wan Ben Kenobi thing by the way. Not copyright is it?