How much thought do you give to naming a pet? How much thought should you give to naming a pet?
For most of us, that’s “not very much.” I mean, there’s not much point in naming a cat, for instance. They don’t come when you call them, so why bother? A dog’s a lot easier. When I picked up my first gun dog, an English Springer Spaniel, I had the theory that a dog’s name should contain at least two vowels separated by a consonant, the better to be heard from a distance. I demonstrated this theory around my parent’s Allamakee County, Iowa, home until everyone’s ears were ringing, at which point the Old Man asked me politely but firmly to shut the hell up.
On this Valentine’s Day, it seems some people are using critter names to cast an ex in a bad light. A couple of shelters around the country are facilitating this practice, and it’s not clear what we should think…
