What is in a name?

Because it was pouring with rain outside I had time lie around in my basket and ponder my life so far. And with all the recent media focused on Bo Obama’s arrival at the Whitehouse it seems fitting that I shed some light own my nomenclature. My full name is Steve Obama Fletchenberg. My last name is a Scottish-Austrian hybrid that reflects the names of my adoptive parents G. and M. But obviously it is my middle name that is the real story here. The story, as I understand it, is that G. and M. were watching Barack Obama’s acceptance speech on live TV – they had been celebrating the moment with their friends B. and N and a few beers so when Obama told his girls they could now have a puppy (his election promise to them), M. looked at G. with tears in her eyes and G. looked back with a plaintive hang-dog expression.  M. could not help but capitulate to G’s desire for a puppy. They adopted me the next day!  Next to explain my first name – and it’s not because Barack joked during the campaign that his middle name was Steve (as opposed to Hussein), we only found this out later – the reason was because when G. was a child he had wanted to call the family dog ‘Steve’ BUT he was told by his mother that this was “no name for a dog!”. So in conclusion I must say that I am disappointed to hear that Michelle Obama had told her daughters that 'Frank' would not do as a name for their Portuguese water dog. I expect one day either Malia or Sasha will convince their partner to get a puppy and to call it Frank!  I would have liked to meet Frank Obama.