Dog rescue groups such as California Labradors, Retrievers, and More often keep track of their many adoptable puppies by naming each litter according to themes. Once adopted, an animal’s characteristics or behavior may suggest other names. And pets’ names may also evolve over time. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Patty, Selma, and Marge: Naming Pets According to Themes”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. The organization called California Labradors, Retrievers, and more finds homes for dogs. And if you go to their website, you’ll see lots of photos of adoptable pups. But as cute as they are, what really strikes me is their names. A lot of the dogs that they rescue are pregnant, and once that dog gives birth, the volunteers raise those puppies until they’re adoptable.
Now, the non-profit has lots of dogs, and to keep track of them all, each litter is named according to a theme. I looked on their website the other day, and there was a litter name for the story of the three bears. So, one of the pups was named Big Bear, and there was also Little Bear and Wee Bear and Goldilocks and Porridge Grant. Porridge, porridge pet names are always good when they’re about food.
Porridge, little Pori, porridge. Yeah, a little Pori, I guess that would work. But I mean, it’s interesting to me that they have a challenge of coming, you know, there’s so many dogs that need homes, and so it’s a real challenge to come up with these themes and then come up with these names within this, the themes. But of course, it’s an understandable system given the number of dogs they have.
But it got me thinking about how we decide to name our companion animals, because I’m sure a lot of people change the dog’s name after they’re adopted. But it also seems to me that while we may have a name in mind when we go to look at dogs, sometimes those dogs tell us what their names are, those cats, you know, after a few days. Right. You just wait and see, are they rambunctious? Are they loving? You just don’t know.
You’re not going to name an evil cat that doesn’t want to be petted, sweetie.
Or maybe you will, ironically.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah. We fostered a tiny little kitten that we called Fang.
I love it. I love big names for small animals, too.
Right, right. Or for big animals.
You know, a Great Dane that you named Fifi or something.
Right, right.
We would love to hear about how you named your litter of animals, be it cats, dogs, llamas, whatever.
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