The Naming of Pets & Katherine T Wins!

I have my Shadow (pictured in my icon), who followed me around like a shadow in the beginning. Now, no so much.

I think this is going to spur a lot of great memories for us, Karen. I had a dog named Kitty--so called because she'd grown up with cats and heard "kitty, kitty, kitty" so much it was the only name she would respond to. She was a great dog. Learned lots of tricks.

Susan 

Yes,with 10 cats and 1 dog,our furbabies are very special. As to names,will try to make it short.
Last year we lost our oldest cat,a tortoiseshell named UnChat(French for cat as our dd#2 was taking french at the time). Our oldest dog,a female shepherd-malamute mix was 11 yr.old Madchen(German for girl-spent 3 years in Deutschland while dh was in Army). Our male golden lab is named Jurgen(after my fave tv guy from Germany also).
Now to our current kitties-Pooter is a grey tabby dh found along a country road and he named him that(no reason).
Stormy is a black calico we got from a feed store(it was a stormy day when we took her home).
Peach is a male orange tabby we got from a lady who rescued cats(he was already named this).
Gizmo is a long-haired tuxedo cat I rescued from under dd#3s mobile home & he reminded me of Gizmo from The Gremlins. He has 2 sisters,Boo is a short-hair all black cat & since it was prior to Halloween it sounded right,then Eule(German for owl as when you look at her all you see in her long black fur is her owl eyes).
Then Sunshine and Snowball who a friend had found in middle of a country road as kittens and they were starving and their eyes were so infected they were sealed closed. Happy to say after treatment they both have beautiful eyes! Snowball is a white Siamese with tabby lines and the most darling crossed baby blue eyes ever! Sunshine is her protector and is also an orange tabby.
Last but not least are two kittens from dd#1-Cutie is an adorable long-hair orange calico with 6 toes on her front paws and 5 toes on her back ones. Her sister is Charmer(which she is) is a grey tabby.
So that is our furbaby family for right now. All are strictly inside as we feel they were all rescued so we plan to keep them as safe as we can.

growing up we normally had pets. On the farm in South America, my sister and I had a pet sheep called Schnoocky. So after we came to Canada we had cats. Can't remember all the names except Rocky. My sister has two cats, Cleo and Caesar.

When I was a child my father had a friend who raised pure bred beagles.  He took me to pick out one of the puppies and the one I picked was well "frisky".  He was running around in circles, jumping all over the place and didn't want to settle down. So he got named frisky.

I didn't have any pets growing up but there were always pets in my neighborhood.  I think that one day I am going to get a dog and I am kind of partial to white huskies.

I know my last post was long, but it also made me want to post what I've been thinking of ever since we had to put Demon to sleep.

My husband had said he wanted a cat that would be big, and I wanted one with personality.  So, in November 1991, off we go to the animal shelter.  Well, there we were and this one lone male tabby was into everything.  He was already quite a good size for his age, and I said - thats the one.  DH ended up falling for a baby grey calico, and we brought both home, but thats another story.

The tabby was christened Demon, and boy did he live up to his name.  Up and down the curtains, terrorizing the other cats.  Into everything.  And even though he was fixed at an appropriate age, he was constantly getting into scraps with the neighborhood cats.  It got to the point that I could call the vet, and say "Demon's been in another fight.  I've cleaned the wound.  Can I just drop in and get some penicillin?" and she'd say fine. 

Then, 3 years later, in 1994, I got pregnant.  Demon had never been a lap cat - he was just too busy to sit calmly.  But as my belly grew, he was on my lap or cuddled against my tummy every time I sat or laid down.  They talk about playing music for the baby when you're pregnant.  My son's music was the purring of a large feline.  When the baby came, once again, every time I sat down with the baby, there was Demon, cuddled against us.

Alex was born in November.  In the spring/early summer, when he was sitting up well by himself, but not yet crawling, I took him outside, and plonked him into the middle of a blanket in the yard.  I sat behind him with my book, with one eye on him while he played.  Then I looked up - I was in one corner, and in the other 3 corners were my 3 cats; with Demon the closest to him. 

Not long afterwards, Alex was crawling in the hallway.  The baby gate was down, and DH and I were close, and watching him.  He headed for the stairs going up.  Demon got in front of the baby, and pushed him away from the stairs.  Alex headed down the hallway, towards the basement stairs.  Demon got in front of him, and pushed him away.  The cat kept doing this, and looking at DH and me as if to say, why aren't YOU doing something.  The cat kept it up until the baby got tired of trying to get around him.

We had put a screen door on the nursery so the cats couldn't get in with the baby.  But as soon as Alex moved out of the crib into his own bed, there was Demon, sleeping with him every night.

Demon was a tough nut, and very territorial.  All his life he would get into fights.  Then he'd come in, and I'd clean him up.  Even though I was hurting him while I treated him, he'd yell and scream, but as he got older, he rarely bit or scratched, but would change the sound of his meow to let me know when he'd had enough.  I'm sure that the cat knew I was helping him and that he'd feel better when I was done.

He ruled the roost.  Any time we brought home another cat, Demon would let it know who was boss.  He rarely had to establish himself more than once.  He would meow at my husband to get milk, or take a scrap of leftovers very neatly from my hand, without nipping. 

Three years ago, my husband came home from work one night.  Demon was crouched in the driveway, looking underneath a car.  DH called Demon, and got ignored, which was unusual.  So he went and knelt next to the cat, to see what was of such interest.  There was another cat under the car.  But neither cat was hissing or growling, so DH coaxed the stray out from the car.  He came into the house, and said - look what I found!  Over my objections, DH fed the cat, and guess what - we had 4 cats, even though I tried to find the owner.  Scamp settled in like he'd always been here.  The strangest thing was that while Demon would smack or growl at our other cats, Scamp and Demon always got along.

We could tell Demon was starting to feel his age.  He'd calculate a jump a bit longer before taking it, and would refuse to go out if it was snowing, though he'd always enjoyed being out of doors.  His eyes were cloudy, and he'd gone partially deaf.  Maybe a bit senile too - he'd patrol the yard, yelling at the top of his voice.  Was he challenging the neighborhood cats, or just stating it was his territory.  When he'd come in the house (through the cat door) he'd march around the main floor of the house yeowling until we acknowledged that we knew he was home.

The last time I took him to the vet, we went throught the same argument about the cat carrier as always.  Once he was in, he gave a couple of mournful howls.  Scamp and Pearl came running to the carrier and put their noses to it.  The three of them communed for several minutes.  Demon complained and grumbled in his cat carrier all the way to the vets, but not as vehemently as even the year before.  When I opened the carrier for him, I expected to have to tip the carrier to get him out, just as always.  Instead, he came out of the carrier with all the dignity of a Japanese Emperor, and sat in a regal pose on the exam table, tail curled around his paws.  He let her open his mouth without complaint, and just looked at us.

I'm sure that he knew the vet was going to help him out of his pain.

I'm sure he's in cat heaven now, chasing all the birds he can find, and feeling like the healthy cat he was in his prime.  I'm sure I'll never know another cat with his character, and will always miss him.

I never had a pet growing up (unless you count the tadpoles I caught in the rain puddles in the service alley behind our house).  After I got married, my husband and I adopted a cute West Highland White Terrier from the pound and named her Sadie.  After we'd paid a ton to cure her skin problems, a woman showed up at our door one night and accused us of stealing her dog.  She took us to court where the judge ruled we had to give the dog back, but the woman had to reimburse us.  And because the dog was in bad shape when we adopted her, the Humane Society told the woman they'd be watching her.

So we bought a purebred black Cocker and called her Meg.  We had her for about 6 years and had to put her down when she developed severe skin problems that caused her to scratch herself raw and put her in intense pain.

Our next dog was an English Springer Spaniel named Mollie.  My husband thought our son needed a pet to teach him discipline.  Ha!  Mama took care of that dog and nobody ever trained her.  I had a newborn in addition to the 4-year-old the dog was for and no time for dog obedience training.  When she was 2 we moved and gave her to a farm family.

The new house had woods behind it, and being deathly afraid of snakes, I was advised to get a cat.  The first cat was a sassy pewter gray Siamese mix that we named Graycie.  A few years later we got a Maine Coon mix.  We got her on a Friday the 13th and the boys wanted to name her Jason or Freddie.  "She's a girl!!" I told them, so we finally agreed on Spook.  Later we got Zelda who turned out to be a he instead of a she and the name got changed to Mr. Bigglesworth AKA Mr. Big.  My son got a cat in college -- a big yellow male named Sampton.  When son graduated and moved to the big city to work, we took temporary custody until he and his wife bought a house and took Sampson back.  My granddaughter calls him "Samfin."

Graycie died, Mr. Big disappeared and we had to put Spook down about 18 months ago so we're petless now and I'm in no rush to get another animal.  I guess I'm getting too old for kitten antics and because Spook never adjusted to our move very well, I'm reluctant to adopt an adult cat that might have relocation issues as well.

My husband has fish, and he has a mama guppie that's had 4 litters since January.  I've started calling him Henry Huggins and telling him he's going to have gallons of guppies if he doesn't watch out. 

Thank you, I recieved my book today.  I can't wait to start it!

I've only ever had two pets, and I have them now.  One is named Earl, he's my yellow anaconda.  The other is my dog, Lily.  Lily was named by my daughter.  Earl, well, he was named by one of my co workers.  When he was delivered to me, I was at work and one of the guys said, "Now, that is one Earl looking..." (can't finish the rest.)  and it just sort of stuck.

So glad I stopped in here before heading to bed!

I grew up with dogs but it was after both my sister and I had married and moved out that my family still stayed connected through our dogs. Mom and Dog got a golden they called "Shane" after my mother's favorite character on her soap opera "Days of our Lives"...Shane Donovan. When my sister and her husband got a corgie a few months later he got the last name "Donovan" and I got my sheltie about six months later so I had to name him "Charlie" (after the actor who played the role, Charles Shaughnessy).

 That was seventeen years ago and only one still with us is Donovan...he's an old guy but still king pup of the family!

I had a number of cats and dogs as I was growing up.  Now that I have kids, I still have a number of cats and dogs!  Right now we have two cats and two dogs.  Our oldest cat is Miss Kitty. My oldest son named her after Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke because she acts like her.  She's pregnant right now.  The next cat is Oreo and my youngest son named her that because she's black and white. Oh! and she'spregnant too.She belongs to ny oldest son and he's done told her that when she has her kittens that he will be the grandpa of them.  We haven't told him that he may not get to keep them.  I didn't think it was time to break his heart. Then there's my oldest dog Max who was named from Max on Dragon Tales. I tell everyone that he's my minature horse!  And last but not least is Runt.  My father-in-law, who's deceased now, and my youngest son  named her that because she was the littlest out of her litter.  Can you tell that my kids have all the names?

I grew up with a collie that my father gave to my mother the year before I was born.  Her name was Vicki (short for Victoria Van Fleet), and the last name, as I understand it, was from a military man in the Korean War.  (Why they named her that, I have no idea.  My dad was in WWII.)   Used to drive me crazy because anytime a kid would see her, he'd yell, "Lassie!"  She was, like Lassie, incredibly smart.  My mother could just talk to her, and she'd understand.  She lived until I was 13 (she was 14), so losing her was especially tough.  During that same time period, I had a small turtle, a number of fish of various types, and a guinea pig, but I can't really remember whether I even named them.  (Can't believe I didn't, but no names come to mind.)  Ironically, now I'm dreadfully allergic to guinea pigs -- as in throat and eyes swelling shut.  So, no more guinea pigs for me!

After Vicki, we had two more collies (all purebred), Go-Go (short for Jan's Golden Dancer because of the way she danced on her back feet) who died all too soon of brain cancer and Missy ("Mother's Mischief Maker") who died at about 12.  The miracle of all this is that my mother has always been scared to death of animals -- almost any animal.  She wasn't scared of our own dogs, but any other dog frightened her to death, and we won't even discuss cats.  (Probably a result of having been the youngest of 9 kids growing up in the country with some pretty rowdy brothers who liked to torment her.)

Once I got in college, I adopted our sorority mascot Themis after the sorority sister who got her got married and left.  She was probably mostly Jack Russell terrier, I think.  She should have been named Houdini, though.  While my aunt was keeping her for me once, she escaped a fenced run in a fenced yard, and we never found her.

As I was living at home again after college, I didn't have any more pets for a while.  However, my DH had a cat (Inky -- a tortie) that had been his mother's prior to her death who lived to be about 17, and two Keeshonds, a male named Bear and a female named Fluffy that I acquired when we got married.  Fluffy died the March after we were married (in December) of complications from having been treated a few years before for heartworms.  Bear lived to be about 13.

However, just a week after Fluffy died, my good friend at work found a dog on her way in one morning lying in the middle of the road.  She and a colleague went out and coaxed her off the road and brought her in to the office.  Because my friend had an older shih tzu that did not get along with other dogs, she asked me if I could take the stray home while she ran the ad in the paper.  I figured DH would blow, since he said he didn't like dogs in the house.  But this little stray was very sweet.  She was black and silver and, as someone else said, seemed to name herself.  We were running down names trying to find one she knew, and she responded to Pepper, which seemed appropriate because of her coloring.  She was a schnoodle (schnauzer/poodle mix) as best we could tell, and it only took 5 minutes of being around her for my DH to change his opinion about dogs in the house.  Her back popped whenever you'd pick her up.  The vet said she may have been hit and that she was between 5 & 8 years old because she already had her wisdom teeth but had not yet developed cataracts.  We had her for 11 years (until she was 16-19 & my DD was 9).  She went everywhere with us, except when the weather was too brutally hot.

During that same time, we acquired a buff colored tabby that was roaming the neighborhood living under our neighbor's shed and taking down birds every time I'd put out birdfeed.  I had a mild allergy to cats, so we weren't going to bring him in the house.  Once our DD started playing with him, we took him to get shots and discovered that he had feline leukemia, which is highly contagious.  So, despite the sneezing and wheezing, we brought him in, named him Waffles (my DD's idea) because he was roughly the color of waffles, and took care of him for about 6 years before he died.  He was a character, too.  Loved to nip me in the backs of my knees, which scared me at first, never having had many experiences with cats growing up.  My DH told me that cats do that when they mate, so whenever the cat would bite me, my DH would say, "Knock it off!  She's not mating with you!  She's already spoken for." 

We had a series of hamsters starting with Graham Cracker (the class golden hamster, already so named) when my DD brought him home from school for the summer and the teacher transferred schools.  Then we had Tazzie, a teddybear hamster.  When he died, my DM brought my DD a beautiful gray Siberian dwarf hamster she named Millie.  As it happened, Millie was preggers and had two babies (thankfully, both female!) named Junebug and Nubbin (the runt).  We also had a series of 3 hermit crabs over time thanks to one of DD's school friends (can only remember Raisin's name right now) and 3 lizards thanks (or no thanks!) to one of DH's coworkers (named Lizzie, McGuire, and Ginko).  Did not enjoy having to purchase live crickets to bring into the house to feed the lizards.  Ick!

Eventually, my DD started champing at the bit for another dog, so we went to the pound and found Triskit, who is a part Cairn terrier and part who-knows-what (named because at that time we had Waffles and Graham Cracker and because her big, pointy ears, which you can see in my avatar, reminded us of the new triangular Triscuits crackers. So we continued the food theme).  She's a wonderful, incredibly intelligent dog, also black and silver like our previous dog.

After Waffles died and enough time passed to insure that the disease wasn't lingering, we acquired Carter (already so named) from the Shamrock Foundation where my DD volunteers.  He's a tuxedo cat with only a partial tail because part was already gone when they rescued him and part died later.  He still longs for the outdoors, but he's gradually learning that he can view it from the window and remain in the safety of the house.  Then, during my DD's last year of middle school, we acquired Dusty Chin (a chinchilla) from one of DH's coworkers.  He's a very sweet-natured, soft, and beautiful guy, but he has a malocclusion that requires that we have his teeth filed down about every 4 months.  Ugh!  Last, but far from least, we acquired Meijer at the grocery of the same name one night when we'd made a late night run for something.  A woman was there with a gray tabby kitten about 14 days old that had been found in her friend's fenced yard -- no mother cat in sight and no other kittens around.  His eyes were barely open, and his ears were still folded down.  He had two puncture wounds in his flanks and one beside an ear, so we think a small bird of prey had picked him up and eventually had dropped him -- probably because he raised such a ruckus.  You never saw such a small kitty with such a loud cry!  Anyway, we agreed to take him for one night only until a nursing mother could be found, but it's 5 years later, and I'm looking at him sleeping on the chair right now.  He had to be bottle fed and wiped down with warm cloths to induce bowel movements, and, because he was hand-raised, he's pretty sure he's human and my DD is his mother.  She can hold him upside down, and he purrs his guts out.  Whatever she does is okay with him.  The term "Curiosity killed the cat" was invented for Meijer.

You can see our motley crew here, if you're interested.

WOW! this has sparked some awesome pet stories. I loved the post about Demon--what a cat. 

lets see my dog name was Noodles. He was part golden retriever and part cocker spaniel. my mom looked at him one day and asked do yu have to out and noodles. and it stuck..

then i had a cat named spot. turtle shell cat.

another cat was named chessie. she was named after the C/o cat. She looked like that cat when she was kitten.

my lastest cat's name id Damnit she is always getting into trouble.

the outdoor cats names are sockers and trouble.

patsy

I love animals!!! Lets see we have two cats. One is named Lucky because it was only by luck and a twist of fate that I found her. Was supposed to head from work straight to dd's vball game but decided I needed to switch into some jeans and a T-shirt so headed home. Got behind slow moving coal truck and not wanting to be late for the game, decided at the upcoming Y in the road I'd go whatever way he didn't. Lucky for me there are lots of ways to get home. That's how I ended up on a country road on a really hot day where a little wee kitty was sitting the middle of the road covered in filth and tar with both eyes swollen and matted shut. Drove slowly past her thinking she'd dash off into the weeds but she didn't budge. I backed up. She didn't move. Got out and she walked to the edge of the road and sat down. I gave this grimy, itty-bitty thing a quick once over, my heart was breaking for her,  and then she walked to my car even though the stereo was blasting and the air conditioner blowing and I lifted her in. She fit in the palm of my hand. She was barely four weeks old the vet surmised. That's how our love story began. She was lucky because if there hadn't been a vball game, I hadn't wanted to get out of my work clothes, if a slow moving truck hadn't gotten in front of me, I'd never have been on that road. We were simply meant to be. *G* So after months of vets visits and lots of medicine and lots of cleaning, she's quite healthy and spoiled. That's her picture up by my name. She's our lucky baby.

Congratlations Katherine!

Happy reading!

Penney

Enjoy your book!

well deservered. Enjoy the book

Congrats Katherine!!