I suppose I should kick off this blog with an explanation of its name. The “she” in “she’s a dork” is not me. The “she” is my dog, Galen, an 18-month-old Australian shepherd/black lab mix. My husband and I adopted Galen from a New Jersey-based cat rescue group that pulled Galen’s entire litter from a North Carolina kill shelter and brought the pups north. It’s quite a story, and one I’ll lay out in later posts.

But back to my explanation:  I am not the one who gave Galen this moniker; Jewelia did. Jewelia works at the daycare center I take Galen to a couple of days a week. This day, Galen didn’t say hello in her unique fashion:  by whining, moaning and whinnying like a horse while wagging her entire backside and boring her big brown eyes into the person she’s greeting. She hadn’t seen Jewelia in awhile, so Galen whined and wagged with a fury we hadn’t seen before. Jewelia looked down at Galen and said sweetly, “You’re such a dork.”

I got into my car and called my husband to relay the story. (When something funny happens regarding human offspring, parents call one another.  It’s no different when the child is canine.) Kevin thought “dork” fit Galen perfectly.

Not persuaded, I referred to dictionary.com for a second opinion. Its definition reads, “Slang for a silly, out-of-touch person who tends to look odd or behave ridiculously around others.” Aside from the person part, the definition is right on.

The name stuck.

Galen at about four months old, posing for a picture in our backyard.