Shiblog Inu: Mikeyba

Shiblog Inu: The Beginning

Welcome to the Shiblog Inu! I'll be telling you all about my experiences with my first dog ever.  His name is Mikeyba and he is an amazing Shiba Inu that my partner Scott and I are fostering, thanks to the dedicated professionals at the NYC Shiba Rescue.  Mikeyba is available to be adopted!!  The website has information about Mikeyba and all the other amazing Shiba Inus available for adoption.

FAQs:
What the heck is with the name?  Mikeyba came to us named "Mikey", which is a perfectly acceptable name.  However, we would want to rename him, if we decide to keep him, and the name we picked is "Kiba".  This means "fang" in Japanese. And Mikey is white, so he'd be White Fang. Cool, huh? Shiba Inus are a Japanese breed, so you'll meet a lot with Japanese names.  I've met a Sashimi, a Panko, and a Maki.  (Japanese food names seem to dominate.) So calling Mikey "Mikeyba" is how we're transitioning him to his new name.  Someday we'll drop the "Mi-" part.

Who are Robert and Moses and why do you talk about them so much?  A wonderful book called 30 Days to a Well-Mannered Dog by Tamar Geller recommends, when housebreaking, to give a name to peeing and pooping.  She uses "hurry up" for her dogs.  When she trained Oprah's dogs, they used "poodie".  (There IS some name- dropping in the book.  But it's still really good.)  We wanted to use something cooler than those, and maybe link the nastiness of excretion with something else nasty.  We considered "Santorum" but that's taken already, and we also considered both "Nixon" and "Jesse Helms" before settling on "Robert Moses".

Okay then, who is Robert Moses?  Oh my goodness, you are in luck.  There is an excellent podcast,  hosted and produced by ME and my best friend Kate, called ABC Gotham.  We talk about fun weird  New York City history and have one topic for every letter of the alphabet.  We did a two- part report on Robert Moses! The short version is, he was an urban planner who destroyed huge swaths of New York City neighborhoods with his highway construction.  He was racist and all- powerful and virtually untouchable. So we say his name instead of "pee" and "poop".  Over time, the term "Robert Moses" broke down to "robert" means #1 and "moses" means #2.

You'll hear a lot about robert and moses becasue, as I said, Mikeyba is our first dog and we spend a lot of time figuring out how to keep robert and moses outside the house.

Coming soon:  The Mikeyba Experience: Day 1.