Wednesday, March 26, 2014

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?







12 comments:

  1. Pet names are so funny. We named a cat Wrinkle because he had a wrinkle in his tail. Our boxer was named Dirksen after Everett Dirksen because of the jowls. My last pet was a basset named Ohso because she was oh so cute, but later oh so messy, stubborn, big, etc.

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  2. I don't have any pets as an adult, but I love the fact that more people are naming their pets with people names- Atticus, Oscar, joe...I love the idea of a pet but not the issues :)

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  3. It is interesting how we come up with names for our pets. All of our pets, except for KC, have had human names. Usually we would just try out names and see which one they respond to. We had Priscilla, Allison, Ben, Archie, Molly, and Ned. We couldn't think of a name for one so we just called her KC,,,Kitty Cat.

    BTW the Google Hangout was a great way to conference. f you are thinking about it for your group I would definitely go for it and give it a try.

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  4. Jackie, Being an animal lover the whisper of beloved pet names conjures up STORIES! Thanks for the inspiration.

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  5. Jackie - thanks for visiting my blog today - we are definitely on the same wavelength with our slices. I love the idea of revisiting all the pets in your life. Their names tell a lot about them!!

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  6. Jackie, I love this post. Names are so important and your choice of names for your pets show this in a real way. I especially love Alarm Clock and that fact that you are not only naming in home pets but other animals who are in the wild but a part of your life. (And thanks for visiting my site today!)

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  7. I love this post and may steal the idea since I am running low on SOL energy. Charlie, my schnoodle, is scratching at the door to go out, so I need to go.

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  8. Great slice! This reminds me of my old dog, Gibson Glover - lethal weapon but not very bright dog. I may have to slice about him in these last days after reading this!

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  9. Our dog, Peppy (named because she had red hair...short for Paprika) was a collie/golden mix. She chased cars too! It drove us crazy. Our first cat was Mittens. She was black with white paws. I love your pet stories. You've had a lot of pets in your life. :)

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  10. My favorite name was my cat, Spot. He acted like a dog and had a big black spot on his neck. Oh ya, and there was Sanity. I got him at the pound. I named him Sanity because I was living alone and he was my sanity as I struggled through being poor, young and unexperienced and lonely. Gosh! You really inspired me to think of all the names I've had for pets. I could go on and on. What a fun memory!

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  11. Oh thinking about this makes me smile. Just reading it makes me think of all the pets I've had and the ways their names really told who they were. My favorite names may always be of the two kittens from your house: Mongojerry and Rumpleteaser (a little Cats reminder). Of course, we quickly shortened those to Mongo and Teaser. I also always enjoyed the name Bubblegum. Bubblegum was my favorite childhood dog. Her mother was named after a candy so we followed suit. Of course that led to calling our cat, purchased from the humane society soon after, Pixie Sticks. Wow, this is fun.

    Cathy

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  12. Cathy and Jackie....love these stories! I never had any pets as a kid bc my sister was allergic. As she grew out of them, we did get a dog that was some sort of terrier mix-reddish brown with straggly hair. We named her Rags....we so loved that dog. I taught her some tricks and she won Top Dog in a doggie contest. Then there was my Lhasa Apso named KoKo, a cocker named Lucy, and latest, my two YorkiPoos. Bentley was named by my son, and Sophie got her name from one of my students. We couldn't decide on her name, so I shared a picture of her with my students, and one said , "she looks like a Sophie." I knew at that moment she was right. It fit her then, and it fits her now. She's a bit ditzy, and so full of spunk.

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