A dog by any other name
As part of the From Left To Write book club, I recently read Cowboy & Wills by Monica Holloway, provided for free through the book club. It's the true story of young autistic boy, Wills, and the golden retriever, Cowboy, that transformed his life. Written by Wills' mother, the book is an unflinchingly honest look at parenting an extraordinary child and the efforts taken to help him lead as ordinary a life as possible. Wills' saving grace turned out to be Cowboy.
Early in the book, Holloway writes of how Wills names his soon-to-be-adopted puppy -- a puppy that would decidedly be female -- "Cowboy" after a quick run-through of ideas with Mom. His first choice (for a female puppy, mind you) was Vincent, of which Holloway writes: "'Vincent is good,' I said, hoping we'd come up with something more upbeat and less like the conniving killer with the bone-chilling laugh in The House of Wax." So she offered up "Ringo." Wills countered with "Cowboy" (from his bedtime song of Cowboys Sing Good Night). "And it's okay that Cowboy's a girl?" Holloway asked him. "Who cares?" was his response. Simple as that, Wills' puppy became Cowboy.
ShannonIt reminded me of Andrea -- the biggest animal-lover in our family -- and her penchant for giving animals unusual names, starting with the naming of her first cat at about the same age Wills named his first puppy.
For many years, our only family animal was a beautiful blue-point Siamese I named Sadie. I can't remember why I chose that name, and I don't recall there being any huge significance to it. The name just sounded good, it fit, it stuck.
Then for animal-loving Andrea's fourth birthday, she was given the kitty she'd begged and pleaded for after seeing it during a July 4 party hosted by a friend of mine. (I'll never cop to a few drinks being the reason I gave in to her requests.)
MickeyFor Andrea, her new itsy-bitsy gray-and-white kitty's name did have huge significance. So she named it Shannon. After one of Brianna's friends. The loveliest of older girls, with long blonde hair, an infectious laugh and a perpetually sunny disposition. All the boys at school pined for her; Andrea idolized her. So she named her cat after her. Which was perfectly fine -- except that Shannon regularly got out of the house and I had to try to lure her back in. Calling out the door or roaming the block calling "Shannon ... Shannon ..." surely sounded like I was the worst of the worst mothers ever, nonchalantly searching for a lost child who'd wandered away.
Soon after, we got Moses, a black lab/collie mix and our first family dog. I gave him that name in hopes he'd live up to it and follow our commandments. Then my sweet Sadie passed away at 19 years old and was (eventually) replaced by tabby Abby. Then, soon after Andrea went off to college, her precious Shannon passed away and was replaced (for me and Abby, not Andrea) with crazy Isabel, a Halloween cat if ever there was one.
KamileahAndrea had no say-so in naming that batch of animals. But when we unexpectedly rescued a sweet 8-week-old pit/pointer mix who'd had both back legs broken by his previous owner, we offered for Andrea name him so that although she was away at college, she'd feel some ownership of the newest family pet. The puppy was white with caramel-colored spots and made Andrea think of her favorite thing in the world at that time: Caramel Macchiatos from Starbucks. She wanted to call the puppy Caramel Macchiato -- but I couldn't go that far in allowing her free reign on the naming. We settled on Mickey. Good enough, she agreed, huffing adding that she'll just name her own animal Caramel Macchiato when she gets one.
LylaAnd her first animal did, indeed, have the same coloring as our Mickey. But she chose to name the calico cat Kamileah, which means "perfection" in Egyptian, Andrea says, and was chosen after much Googling and searching for the absolute perfect name for her very own pet.
LukeHer next very own pet, a rescue dog of black lab/shepherd descent, she named Lyla. Because in Persian it means "dark as night." And Lyla she remains -- although she's been adopted by Grandma and Grandpa (meaning me and Jim) after apartment living didn't suit her style ... and her overactive bladder, constant chewing, and hyper disposition didn't suit Andrea's patience.
It was only with her most recent pet acquisition that Andrea settled on something a little more "normal." A few months ago she purchased the cutest little fluffball of a dog ever, a Zuchon, and she named him Luke. Of course, unlike her mother who names animals just whatever sounds good, she crowned the puppy Luke because he looks like an Ewok from Star Wars, but calling him Ewok would have been a little bizarre, she thought. So she named him Luke ... after Luke Skywalker.
And it was that reasoning, that relatively normal name for a pet -- coming from a young adult who not so long ago thought Caramel Macchiato was an acceptable name for a puppy -- that led me to the most bittersweet of realizations: My animal-loving little girl, the last of my three babies, had truly grown up.
Today's question:
What's the strangest name of one of your past or present pets?
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Reader Comments (17)
Well, we do have a dog named after a character in an Anime series (Ein), so that's probably the oddest. Of course, how from Ein I wind up calling him Professor, Senor, Roo, Roo-di-boo, Kins and more is the real strangeness....
I had a little boy cat named Spike. But I don't think that's all that strange. I lived with a girl who named her cats Martini and Rossi. Maybe the names weren't strange, but she was.
When we six children were permitted to keep one of calico Patsy's litter of kittens, we chose a black one we wanted to name Midnight but Mother said that the white spot on his chest meant he'd not truly be a Midnight; so, we named him Leven-thirty and it stuck.
The last cat we had was a pretty gray tabby. Joan found her at the back door of her building at work, and brought her home. We were into the "American Idol" show at the time, so we named her Simon. I'm embarrassed to say we weren't sure if she was a boy or girl, she was so small. So she was named Simon, after Simon Cowell on American Idol. She lived up the the name, too, because she grew up to be a finicky, grumpy kitty cat. But we loved her. She's gone now, but not forgotten.
Names of our dogs haven't been too unusual...Brandy, Sebastian, Grace and now Annie. Friends pet's names on the other hand is different. One friend let her 7 year old name their Bichon-Friese Bagel. It was just weird saying, "come here, Bagel"!
My cats have all been named after favorite musicians; Stevie, for Stephen Sondheim, Bernie for Bernadette Peters (and Bernie the cat was male), Bobbie for Bobby McFerrin (spelled differently since Bobbie's a girl). But the oddest name had to be York for the cat who came to live with us soon after 9/11.
I'd love to read that book! It sounds so interesting, I have so many Vincents in my life, however, that I take exception to the author's interpretation of the name :)
I've had many cats in my life. My first was named Pokey because I was four years old and loved the claymation show Gumby, and Pokey was his orange colored horse :) There was then a Pokey 2. 3, and 4! When I got married my husband bought me a kitten for our first Christmas together and I named her Samantha, just because I loved the name. When my daughter was 10 her birthday wish was for a kitten so we went to the vet and adopted an abandoned black kitten that she named Pepper.
I guess the strangest name is for the cat I adopted as a 6 year old from one of my daughter's friends as her fiance was severely allergic to him. He was named Nyla after the female in the Lion King story as the owner thought he was a she when she got him as a kitten. I wanted a new name and in my infatuation with Bo B*ice, who was on American Idol at the time, I named him Bo! He took to the name right away and responds to it so it stuck!
My dad named our first dog, I think I was 10 yrs old, "Blah". Blah is a Hawaiian expression like saying "bro". We were living in Calif. at the time and of course we got kidded about our dog's strange name!
I adopted a set of gerbils from a friend of mine who moved away and couldn't take them with her. They were named Minimus and Tinimus, which I couldn't deal with so I changed their names to Cujo and Katchoo. Cujo really did turn out to be the mean one.
My kitty's names are Bentley and Izzy.
Your story of yelling for Shannon reminded me of a tree I planted in memory of my brother who we lost to cancer. We referred to the tree as Uncle Bill. One day some friends were over that were unaware of our named tree.
A huge storm came through and it had been storming hard for quite some time when I looked out back and said "Uncle Bill is getting blown away out there!"
The guests looked at me like "Why in heavens name is your uncle bill out there?"
I have to say that my animals have unique names because how can such an off the wall owner have normal animals with normal names? Despite naming Luke, Luke, he is still quirky and may possibly own a light saber one day just to live up to his name. :o)
I don't know how I forgot this, but the first dog my family ever had was named Herkimer. He had that name when we got him, so no blame on me or my family. Herkimer. Yep. That was strange.
Unfortunately, one of our cats got named Spaz because she was very unruly. Another cat who adopted us was named Maytag because he used to sleep out in the dryer on the back porch. Our current cats are called Buddy Boy and Bad Girl because they're identical black cats and we kept asking each other "is that Boy or Girl?" and nothing else stuck. Then there's the Brute Squad, our three Chihuahuas. Fiona is named after Shrek's beloved. She's more like Shrek than a princess! Madeline was named Madeline because she was so delicate and reserved when I got her. I could see her sipping tea with her pinky out. Cassie was named Cassiopeia because she has a little spot of white on her front paw that looks like a star. So we named her something astrology wise. Clearly we're not good at this.
These are GREAT! Now I have a looooong list of names for the next animal(s) we get! Thanks, guys! The weirder the better -- and I think "Bagel" about takes the cake in weird names for animals.
Shelley: Love the Uncle Bill story. Truly made me GOL (that's GIGGLE out loud ... I'm not much for LOLing).
Lisa - I love the name of your Blog. That is hilarious! And then I saw your picture and was thinking, "How can she be old enough to be a grandma?" The panties hanging are the best!
I loved your story of all your animals and it was even sweetened by seeing the wonderful pictures of them - including the ones of your family on the right hand side.
Yes, Wills will tell you, naming a pet is a very serious undertaking, as it seems you already know.
Thank you for this wonderful Blog. Sending you and your family (including all four-legged ones) love!
Thank you for stopping by, Monica. I'm so glad you enjoyed the post inspired by your story of Wills and Cowboy. I appreciate the comment and wish you the very best of luck with your touching book.
Our cat is officially named "Thomas," as in "peeping tom" because he makes this funny peeping noise when you goose him, and "tom" because that's what he was before getting 'tutored.' After a very short while, he became "boo boo" - though he's had at least 25 nicknames over the years.