Pet Names

This morning I awoke to the vigorous pecking of our neighborhood woodpecker.  We call him Ace.  In my foggy morning mind, I asked Ray why we chose Ace for its name.  "Alarm Clock," he said. "AC for short." 

AC

That got me thinking of other animal and pet names that have been part of my life.  Of course, there was Tom...the tom cat.  That was the first.  Next, Sunshine the gray kitty who brought so much sunshine in our lives when we first moved out to the country.  She greeted us when we moved to the old farm house where we lived while building our own house....and brought lots of sunshine to our lives and a few kittens, too. 

There were the typical names of Blackie, Brownie and Frisky for the two beagles and collie.  We had to find a new home for Blackie and Brownie because they chased Mr. Walker's sheep.  My sister and I were so distraught that our neighbor got us a collie puppy.  I remember naming him...we got in a circle and called out different names...he ran to the one who said 'Frisky.'  I was only four at this time, so don't know who said Frisky...but I think it was my sister.

I remember Frisky traveled with us to Iowa...one time.  He had a bad habit of chasing cars, and so while in the car he would follow each car we drove by going the opposite way.  Not only would he follow them with his head he would say "errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr RUF"  for each car.  The RUF was like a soft bark that would be accented with each car.  If there were three cars close together, Frisky would go, "errrrrrrrrrrr RUF RUF RUF!"  It was a long seven hour drive....but I never heard my father raise his voice. 

Mr. Walker might have felt guilty about us giving our beagles away because a couple of years later while I was playing in his barn, I found a litter of kittens.  He told me I could take the litter and the mother home.  Maxine (my mother) said that Mr. Walker just wanted to get rid of those kittens knowing that the mother would return to the barn once they were weaned. (I hate that term 'get rid' when in reality it is finding a new home.) She was right...Mama Kitty soon left, and we had the task of finding homes for four kittens.  We kept the black one which I named Black Beauty.  I will have to write a post about Black Beauty as he has a good story to tell.

We rescued a sparrow and named it Spatzee.  We had a chicken named Peppy Peppy, Chicken or Cat and a rabbit named Happy.  Linda rescued a couple of opossums...but I don't remember their names.  I found a box turtle and printed the name John (after my favorite Beatle) in silver paint on its shell and let it go only to find it months later with just bits of the silver paint remaining.

Black Beauty died a couple of years after we moved to Toledo.  Now we lived in the city, so the next kitty we got was an inside cat...a Siamese named Bangkok.  Our neighbor always called him Bancroft after a nearby street.  There are a few stories about Bangee that I will have to tell in later posts.

Later in my life my uncle bought me a mare and her colt.  I named the colt, Swede, after my uncle.  Other pets...Jeopardy was the runt of a litter of Siamese kittens and not supposed to live...thus the name...she lived to be 13.  Of course, Little Nimbus got her name because she looked like a storm cloud with swirls of gray, white and salmon colored long hair.  There were lots of other pets, but I better stop here for now.

What are the names of your pets and why were they named those names?