I’m not sure why, but my daughter’s friends decided his name should be Alfredo.  “Fredo!” they called him, and our Mob Boss puppy would come running into their arms.

But I wanted to name him Chester.  The other two family members didn’t veto it, but didn’t seem thrilled with it either.   After exhausting the crowd-sourced list of potential monikers, I kept coming back to Chester.

“I want to name him after Chester Bennington of Linkin Park,” I finally explained.  “He understood depression, and his song lyrics really expressed how I feel a lot of the time.  This little guy is going to help me battle my own depression, and I want to train him as a therapy dog to help others.”

Silence.

“Well, we can’t argue with that,” my husband said.  My daughter nodded in agreement.

So, Chester it is.

Unfortunately, Chester’s namesake lost his battle with depression last year.

He fought a good fight, and I intend to fight an even better one.