Sunday 25 October 2015

The Naming Of Dogs...

I started thinking about this over the past week, since Freddy passed away on 18 October. Why? Well, every time I mentioned him, I was able to give a different name. All variations on a theme, and he responded to them all, bless his cotton socks.

Annie
We need to go back a few years, of course, as the dogs in my grown-up life have all had names which, for want of a better word, evolved over the years. Annie was Ian's absolutely gorgeous blue merle Border Collie. Her name was a suggestion from Ian's mum, Janet. Annie was a nice enough name but Ian decided that it was short for Antonia. Being a blue merle, it was probably inevitable that her surname would be Specklehound. However, I remain unsure where her middle name came from. It wasn't long before she became Antonia Floripedes Specklehound...

Joey - you can see the mischief in his eyes...
When Annie was taken from us, far too early thanks to a rare and virulent form of doggy cancer, Ian vowed: no more doggies for a fair old while, no boy doggies and definitely no puppies. Which is probably why, just four weeks later, Ian headed off to the other side of Wales to pick up - you guessed it - a male Border Collie puppy. The last in the litter, from an advert placed by a sheep farmer, so clearly neither the best of the bunch nor a natural sheepdog. But along came Joey. Or, to give him his full name, Joseph Ffairfach Nathan Jones. A fine name indeed! So how did this one come about? Well, it was the week before Christmas (hence Joseph), the farm was near Ffairfach and the farmer's name was Jones. This didn't take Ian long to come up with (and it was a long drive home, so plenty of time to ponder). I added the Nathan; Bananarama have a lot to answer for ;-)

Freddy Dingo
Joey didn't take kindly to being an only child, so the following spring we headed off to the Border Collie Trust to find him a playmate - or at least something to chew on other than the furniture... Folks - if you are looking for a Collie, this is the place to come! They interview you first about your experience with dogs, your living situation and working pattern - everything that would affect the choice of dog they would introduce you to. As it turned out, the first dog they brought out was Freddy! We saw a couple of others as well, but we ended up going back to their first recommendation. They had asked us to bring Joey along, and we put them together in the play area. They hit it off immediately - and so we welcomed hairy kid #2 into the family! His name was Prince, and it is best to rename a rescue dog in case their original name has negative connotations. Some simple word association and we had his new name: Freddy! Need a clue? Well, we'd watched the Scooby Doo movie not long before...

Freddy's favourite place!
One day, a few weeks later, we were walking the dogs when an Australian guy passed by, saw Freddy and commented "That's a mighty fine dingo you've got there!" - and so plain old Freddy became the rather lovely Freddy Dingo! Dog name evolution kicked in and it transpired that Freddy was, in fact, short for Federico. Not Frederico, which would have been easier to explain, of course, but you'd have to ask Ian why there was no "r" after the "f". He was studying Spanish at the time. And French. And Italian. And Portuguese. Perhaps that had something to do with it? More confusion was to come, and Freddy's full name eventually became Federico Dingo Dingo Dog. He was also known as Mr Dingo, but you had to pronounce it "Meeeeesta Deeeeeeengo" with your best Speedy Gonzales impersonation. And yes - he'd happily come running no matter which name you called him with!

...and what a nap partner Freddy was!
Two dogs became too much for our small terraced house, so we made the switch to rental and moved into a lovely four-bed semi in the middle of nowhere (more or less) with a massive garden. Just as well, really, as hairy kid #3 joined us a couple of years later. 

A last-minute change of plans, a switch to an earlier train home after a conference, and Ian hears the whiny sounds of an unhappy puppy. He goes to investigate under the guise of a trip to the loo. It's a gorgeous Siberian Husky, on his way down to a flat in London with new owners. New owners who have never had a dog before. Ian has a chat and gives them his card in case they have problems.

And then there were three!
Two weeks later; a phone call, a trip to a motorway service station and lo! Hairy kid #3 has arrived, albeit with a cat's food bowl, a bag of adult dog food and a very disgruntled expression on his face. His previous owners had obviously not done even the most basic research into the breed, leaving him alone in their flat all day then wondering why he ripped up all their furniture. Rule one: Huskies are pack animals and should never be left on their own. Cody (his pedigree certificate naming him Prince of Dream was shredded immediately) was now with his fourth owners after just a few months. Unfortunately, we had a holiday in Canada planned. The other two were off into kennels, but we managed to find some friends who could give Cody their undivided attention while we were away.

And so the name evolution process began once more. Cody was fine, of course, but it turns out it was short for Codias or, sometimes, Codiac. His previous name had been Alex, which was relegated to being his middle name, although we changed it to the grander Alexander. And the surname: this was where the holiday in Canada came in handy. We drove past the ice rink of a local hockey team, the Timberwolves. Well! Huskies are genetically close to wolves, sharing more wolf-like traits than other dogs, and Timberwolf would make a fine surname. But it didn't quite sound right. Cody is a saddleback, mainly white, but with a grey patch on his back. Just then, a certain song came on the radio, and so Cody finally became Codias Alexander Timberlake. When we got back, we told him his new name. He didn't seem that bothered, unless use of that name resulted in him getting food.

Sonny in his natural habitat
Times change, and the hairy kids ended up on a livestock farm down in Devon at the Edge of Exmoor. Joey was finally back in his puppyhood environment and actually showed some natural instinct when introduced to the sheep. And, inevitably, along came hairy kid #4. One of the young farm dogs wasn't getting along with his doggy daddy, and so Sonny joined the gang. Now, this was a tricky one, as Sonny was his accepted name. Not to be outdone, Ian interpreted this as "Sunny" and so he became known as Sunshine Superhound! Well, he is rather splendid to watch as he rounds up the sheep.

So there we go! The Ians got rather used to the four-dog situation, and Ian F has always wanted more. Now, with Freddy's sad demise, there is a vacancy - in our hearts as well as in the kitchen at lights-out time. No doubt, once a new hairy kid has been adopted, the whole doggy name evolution process will start once more.