I love naming people and animals in my family…these are a few of my favorite pet names from the animals I have known and loved:
When I was in the 6th grade, we took in a black and white stray cat who we named Big Fat although she was small and scrawny. I renamed her Felicia (get it, for feline).
She had one kitten who survived for a few weeks that was pale gray and white. I named her Crayola for her lack of color.
When I was in 7th grade, we got a golden retriever puppy from the pound. My mother named him Fuzzbucket after a movie that we watched all the time about some kid with an invisible friend. He was Fuzzy or Fuzz-Fuzz most of the time.
When Fuzzbucket was about 3 years old, my little sister got a tiny gray and white kitten when someone’s cat had an unexpected litter. When she was brought home, the dog sniffed at her and she hissed at him although she was too small to be much of a threat. I said that she was so small, Fuzzy could have eaten her up in one bite and that she should be named Purina Puppy Chow. The name stuck although she was usually called Purina or Purrie.
My sister got another cat, a smudge calico whom she named Mokey, short for Smokey, but I call her S’monkey because she’s a little monkey.
Right now, I have a cat who I found shortly after Typhoon Nari in September 2001. Since I found him in the middle of the road in Taiwan, I wanted to use the word lu and came up with Louisa. Then he turned out to be a male (hard to see on a rainy night in Hsintien) so I switched the syllables around to make Isalu (xiaomao luzhong). His Chinese name is yi (safe) shi (lion) lu(road).
Pictures of these animals (except Big Fat who stayed with us long enough to have two litters before running away again) coming soon…
Puff (cat)
(fill in later, can’t recall) (Brittany Spaniel)
Puppy (street dog from Taipei)
Puffy (street dog from Taipei)
Homer (street dog from Taipei)
We had a bunch of cats when I was a kid, but I can’t recall them at all. We had a silver-tipped Persian once, but I don’t recall if it had a name. Probably.
Tuffy (Spaniel)
Sam (G. Shepherd)
Blue Dog (Blue-eyed mutt)
Cowboy (top ratting barn cat)
Penny (English Setter)
Pup (Mutt)
Max (Cat)
Sam (Cat)
Mou Mou (Black Turkish Angora cat)
Sadie (Rabbit)
Dofu (Shar Pei dog)
Bjorn (Shar Pei dog)
Well, those are the names that I can remember now. There were many transient cats and dogs on the farm… some named, others not. Cannot recall all of them.
We named a cat that used to hand around the courtyard near the school scabby. This was the scariest, ugliest cat I have ever seen. It looked like somethings from a sci-fi movie.
My terrier mutt back home is named Elvis, but he can’t sing or dance.
My parents’ doberman mix is Soda.
Blacky - a black stray cat
Maluko - a stray cat we didn’t keep
Ginger - a ginger kitten who died
Robby - a fat longhaired cat we inherited
Skipper - a kitten we saved
England:
Pussy - had her since the day she was born till the day she died 14 years later
Taiwan:
Donut - Bought from a shop when we naive about these things, died in my arms 2 years later thanks to an incompetent vet
Pudding - Siamese
Tommy
Spot - Named after Data’s cat in Star Trek
Hamster - hamster
Hamster - hamster
Hamster - hamster
Hamster - hamster
Hamster - hamster
Hamster - hamster
Hamster - hamster
Hamster - hamster
Got rid of those when I left Taiwan, but then I was stupid enough to come back
Miao Miao
Bi-Ling
And a new born kitten who only survived a few days
Calisto is my 7 kg cat. I named her during my Xena Warrior Princess days. I thought Calisto was the hot character, but it was actually Valeska. Should have named her Valeska.
Emma is my younger cat. I named her after Rachel’s baby in Friends.
Now if I was brighter I’d know how to put their pictures here.
GiGi (Siamese male first thought not)
Tom (lab who somehow learned to occasionally point as well)
Dakota (Doberman) (great dog, fearless)
Eggnog (yellow-bellied Siamese-mix, male) (likely retarded)
Flike (dachshund; had him for 7 days until he died of distemper in Taiwan after I was stupid enough to buy him from a pet shop)
Spike (schnauzer; got him from a couple of excellent schnauzer breeders in Taipei) (ten feet tall, bulletproof; infamous rag-doll hunter and floor-towel killer)
dozens of farm animals named Dog, Cat, Heyyou, etc.
Barney (who “married” my sister’s hamster Betty) - piebald hamster
Tucker - teddy bear hamster
Pepper - teddy bear hamster
Stephanie (the longest lived…three whole years into the golden hamster golden age) - golden hamster
Fish:
Mr. and Mrs. Bubbles shared by my sister and me: committed double suicide as both jumped from their bowls to be discovered by me after school one day
Snake:
Einstein the garter snake…actually belonged to my chemistry teacher, but I used to hold it while I did my table work.
Byron & Shelley (cats). After I left for Asia, my ex-roommate’s mother, who took them in, renamed Byron “Sissy.” (Sigh.) I guess that’s better than “Fluffy,” which was also among the choices.
Byron died recently at the age of 15. Shelley is carrying on with Byron’s life work, which involves sleeping on top of the VCR and slowly filling it up with cat fur.
Shirley - Clever tabby cat - named after my doctor’s receptionist.
Rover - An astoundingly stupid Black Lab who managed the unique feat of learning to open doors. Never quite figured out how to close them though.
Pud’n’tat - A friendly, somewhat stunned tabby cat.
Ethel - A clever and evil cat.
Bubba - A very funny orange cat.
Yowler - Another orange cat named for the obvious reason.
Crow - a great black and white cow print cat.
Bibi - a charming Pug.
Joey - intellectually deficient white Afghani.
Kon Kon (Taiwanese for ‘moron’) - possibly the world’s stupidest dog. Pure Boston Terrier. Has eaten many, many odd things, such as paint and coachroach poison, with no apparent ill effects. Occasionally walks into walls. Very funny, but a very brain damaged dog. Never buy an uncommon breed in Taiwan.
Fu Manchu - A lovely street dog we rescued. Some sort of mix of Corgie, Shiba and Taiwan Tu Go. He’s curled up beside me right now. We usually call him Fu-Fu.
Charlie - a shih tzu
Dudley - a lhasa apso (My students here always laugh when I tell them his name because of Harry Potter’s cousin Dudley. We named him after Dudley Moore, however.)
Savage - a gerbil I had when I was a kid
