We are all very careful (usually) to be careful that we name our children names that will not embarrass them later.

Though there will always be exceptions such as the poor guy I heard of who was called Chrispin Brown.

I am thinking its about time we took a little more care when naming our pets also.

If your a regular to Xomba you are probably aware that my brothers old cat was called B'stard. The cat was a bit of a character. I asked me brother if he had any regrets about B'stard when we were talking about the article and he said only one - I should never have called him B'stard.

He says, you have to imagine it, you have a cat who spends 90% of its time appearing to be lost, you can not stand and your front door or wander around the neighborhood shouting the "ooooh B'stard, come here B'stard, comeon comeon...etc..", as you are likely to get yourself beaten up to within an inch of your life in some areas.

I smiled at one of the comments I received about this story regarding another cat called Ugly, funny name but potentially the same problem.

A friend of mine owns a dog called Dixie. Her name gets shortened to Dix a lot, but never outside, you can not shout "Dix" across a busy dog park - people are going to think you are strange.

There lesson here, is be careful what you call your pet.

My dad, retired farmer, until now, has always owned more than one dog. He had collies for rounding his sheep and a gun dog or two typically. He said to me;

"always give your pet a short name ESPECIALLY if you own more than one pet" - he preferred single syllable names that have short vowel sounds.

Dogs particularly a great at learning many words and sounds, but when you have 3 dogs and you need them all back quick, 3 short names is very clear for them to understand, especially if your dogs are a 100 yards away.

Imagine a trip to the dog park, you see an issue ahead, a dog is troubling the other dogs and you decide you want to avoid the confrontation that's likely to occur... do you want to be shouting:

"Marmaduke Fredrick the Thiiiiiiiird", Mr Snuggley-Wuggley, ...etc"?

NO!, I bet you don't. You want to be able to react quick, have the dogs react quick and be out of the way as quickly as possible.

So, were I guess its OK to give your dog a really long name, its probably best to keep that name and his "Sunday name" and the rest of the time, just call him Fred or something.

© Article and Images helenkw