WhiskerFeathers News

A Rose by Any Other Name?

One of the first responsibilities a new pet owner has is to give your new cat or dog a name. In some cases he or she comes with a name and then the choice is to keep it or change it.

Pet names can be all over the place! Your can have a human name such as Millie, an inanimate object like Spuds, a color like Blondie, a mood like Happy! The possibilities are limitless, that is why is can be a daunting task to come up with a name. Some suggestions would be watch for outstanding behavior characteristics; for instance if your girl dog has a regal bearing you might name her Duchess. A real friendly bog dog who always wants to be with you could be “Buddy”.

You might investigate pet names from books and movies; does a name jump out at you? How does it sound to you? “Pickles” may put you in a happy frame of mind while “Fang” not so much! The 2002 live action movie Snow Dogs had the following dog names:

• Nana
• Demon
• Mac
• Scooper
• Diesel
• Ralph
• Sniff
• Yodel
• Duchess

Television, series in particular, over the years has had a lot of dog characters from I Love Lucy’s Fred, “little Ricky’s” puppy to Buck in Married With Children. Did you have a favorite show to pick a name from?

The American Kennel Club, AKC, has very strict naming rules which I think are very interesting:

• Name choices are limited to (36) thirty-six characters. Spaces between words, apostrophes and hyphens are counted.  Note: Effective, February 1, 2008, AKC is testing a pilot program that allows for the registered name of a dog to contain up to (50) fifty characters.
• All letters in a dog’s name are limited to the Standard English alphabet. Diacritical markings (accent grave, accent acute, umlaut, etc.) are not printed on Registration Certificates in a dog’s name. When Registration Certificates are printed, all letters are capitalized.
• A Registered Kennel Name cannot be included in a dog’s name unless its use is authorized by the owner of the name.
• Roman numerals must not be included at the end of the dog’s name. The AKC reserves the right to assign roman numerals for identification purposes.
• The AKC permits thirty-seven (37) dogs of each breed to be assigned the same name
• Words and phrases that may not be included in a dog’s name:
  • Champion, champ sieger or any other AKC title or show term either spelled out or abbreviated.
  • Obscenities and words derogatory to any race, creed or nationality or transliterations of such words.
  • Kennel(s), male, stud, sire, bitch, dam and female.
  • Breed names alone.
  • There are no restrictions on Arabic (1, 2, 3), cardinal (one, two, three) and ordinal (first, second, third) numbers that are spelled out.
• An imported dog must be registered with the same name under which it was registered in its country of birth, except for the addition of a Registered Kennel Name.

Aren’t you glad you can name your regular dogs Max or Roxy?

Let us not forget our cats. The above suggestions all apply to them as well. My cat’s name is Sofie Tucker after the last of the Red Hot mama’s. It’s fun to give a cat or dog an opposite name such as Tiny for a Great Dane of Bruiser for a Chihuahua!

If all else fails get a book for naming babies!

The fact is that these names are really for us people. What our pets are really responding to the love and attention we give them through our voices.