Since I don't feel I had enough responsibilities in my life, once I moved into my new house, I decided that I needed to have a dog. I had always wanted a German Shepherd, so after finding a German Shepherd Rescue located in Raleigh, I decided to look for a dog through them. After a couple of weeks, I was put in contact with the owners of Patriot. His current owners had to move to a new place where a large dog like Patriot would not have been very comfortable, so I agreed to adopt Patriot, and on February 9, 2001 I picked him up. He's a big guy (that is a little bit of an understatement), about 120 lbs and is most likely between 3 and 4 years old (the exact age of most dogs from Rescues is rarely known).
After I had him for a couple days, I considered the possiblity of renaming him, since I was not particularly fond of the name Patriot (it sounds like the name of G. I. Joe's dog). Also, he's such a large, imposing dog, I felt it would be better if his name didn't make him sound like an attack dog. After carefully observing his personality, I decided that the name Ubu would be a much better name for him. Bonus points for those who can recall where that name comes from.
