Blog O'Dogs

I love the recent fad of combining words or names to show their status as a couple. Brangelina, Gyllenspoon, Vaughniston... It's ironic, actually, considering my distaste for alternate spellings. But I think the word combination craft intrigues my obsession with grammar, spelling and language, because you have to join words at points that make sense with traditional language conventions and make sure letters or sounds are paired with other letters and sounds that follow standard English protocol.

I got to thinking (way too much) this morning about labradoodles - the dog breed that's a cross between labrador retrievers and standard poodles. Wade's sister has one, which I met over Christmas, and my cousins also have one, which my parents met on New Year's. Mom was describing my cousins' dog to me, saying it was like a big mop of huge curly hair, which I thought was interesting because Angie's dog has relatively short hair, though still curly. Mom said that labradoodles can vary widely in looks, because they can be bred in a number of ways.

So I thought of even more names to capture the exact breed of dog, depending on the parents. There's the puppy of a lab and a poodle - your basic labradoodle. If you breed that labradoodle with another lab, you get a labradordle (more lab than poodle). If you breed the labradoodle with another poodle, you get a labroodle or maybe a poobradoodle (more poodle than lab).

If you bred a golden retriever and a collie, you'd end up with a litter of gollies. A Scottish terrier and a Great Dane? Painful as that would be, you would get a Great Scott!

Which other combinations can you think of?