Grigio and a Friend Maybe?

We've been looking for a big dog. We have a little foofoo dog, Miss Brigid of Kildare (A bichon... and her nameday is Friday!). But now that we're back on the farm, and getting ready to get geared back up with chickens and what-all (I don't know yet all what), we need a guardian, protector, coyote chaser again.

Our much-beloved yellow lab, Anthony (so named because his birthday was June 13th), passed away a few months before we left the farm. Anthony was the world's best dog. Bar none. He LOVED to chase tennis balls; he was the tennis ball retrieving champion of the world. Whenever we left to go anywhere, we'd find him waiting for us at the top of the driveway, where he'd meet the car and walk us up to the house. Wherever the Littles were playing, he was there. The garden never saw a rabbit when Anthony was on patrol. We never lost a chicken. He wore a little path all around the property where he'd walk his patrol several times a day. All the animals loved him, including the cats. We loved him. But it was his time to go.

And, now we think we've found his successor. Maybe two of them.

These pups are only two weeks old now. They're half Black Lab, half Great Pyrenees.

Gonna be Big Dogs.

We have our eye on that little golden male at the top there.

And this little girl is already ours, seeing as she's already pooped on me. (Only a mother can understand that kind of bonding, I expect...)

We can't take them home until the end of February, but we've put a deposit on one and have made a proposal to take another one, especially if the owner has trouble selling the rest of the litter of nine. I'm thinking a boy and a girl would be good. We've already decided that one of them has to be named Grigio, in honor of St. John Bosco's guardian angel dog, since tomorrow is Don Bosco's feast day. But the other one, we can't decide what to name!

There are no Italian girl's saint names to go with Grigio between the birthdate and this week... We couldn't even find one around the date we'll be picking them up. We're thinking about "Sally" in honor of the Salesians, especially since we met the pups yesterday on the feast of St. Francis deSales. But that's not Italian and I'm having trouble imagining myself calling, "Sally! Grigio! Grigio! Sally!" Doesn't sound right, does it? Then we were thinking maybe "Bella," a wonderful Italian adjective my friend Bia uses...

We're open to suggestions... Any ideas?