Be sure pet name passes holler test

I’ve heard it said before, when you name a pet you should close your eyes and envision standing on your front porch hollering that name at the top of your lungs as all your neighbors stop what they’re doing and look to see who is calling their dog.

I’ve got to say I’ve named and known a lot of pets that didn’t go through that proper vetting.

Right now I’ve got pets that were named pretty carefully and I don’t mind stepping out either door and hollering for them. Ranger was named after the name on my pickup and Ranger other images attached such as Texas Ranger, U.S. Army Ranger and Forest Ranger. Pretty macho name, don’t you think?

Maggie was just a pretty good name for a little mop-head of a dog. She’s spry, spunky and gregarious just like my grandmother whose name was Maggie Musette. I never understood why she went by Musette rather than Maggie. I’m not sure what her folks hollered when they called for her from the dugout door, but it seems like Maggie would have been easier.

I think my real awareness of the importance of pet names settled in after I let my wife name the first three dogs we had after we were married. After all, she had a Siamese cat named Belle Starr and that seemed to speak well for her ability to name a pet. I already had a dog named Snert after the Hagar the Horrible’s comic strip Viking character’s dog. Snert was a little strange to be yelling out the back door, and I did it a lot with him.

The first new dog after marriage was christened Nipper because my wife sold RCA televisions at the family store and a black and white dog named Nipper was the company mascot. While our dog was black and white, it didn’t look anything like the RCA Nipper and our Nipper was a girl, not a boy. That always seemed like a problem to me.

The second got the name Comet because he strayed up one night on a country road while we were actually looking at a meteor shower, not at a comet. But that aside, that was not too bad a name.

After Nipper and Comet went on to doggie heaven my wife was determined to get another dog even though I wasn’t so keen. Thinking she was appeasing me she named him after a term of endearment, Snickle-Fritz, she’d heard my family use. For short we called this male dog Sniggles. I didn’t even want to stick my head outside and call him that name and he never, ever answered to it.

I didn’t do so well naming dogs on my own before marriage either, but at least I got girl-sounding names with girl dogs. There was Nibbles, Velvet and Lashes. Because they in order nibbled on carpet, had a velvet muzzle and big eyelashes. I must have had help from my sister on those names.

I’ve done much better in recent years in the pet name game and I’m planning on keeping up the standard. In fact, I’ve already set aside the next two names.

One will be named Yeller and the other will be Shane. That way when I stick my head out the back door I can yell “Come Back Shane.” Or step out on the front porch and sing, “Come Back Yeller ... “Best doggone dog in the West.”

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]