A Rose by Any Other Name

They are all similar it's true and there have been moments, especially when it is dark or I am too close to tell, that I have mixed them up and called Candy Kerry or Looki Candy or whatever.  They don’t really mind, though sometimes they look at me quizzically.  I have discovered that they totally recognise their own names.  When we are out walking and I call them back it's no good just calling out "Come on you guys!" I have to call them individually or they just don't hear me and keep on sniffing.  Well Looki has been known to actually ignore me anyway, not because he did not hear me but because he had other things on his mind and was more interested in the pretty little bitch in season who was swishing her tail in his direction…. but that is a story for another day.

Sometimes it's hard to tell them apart, or even where one ends
and the next begins

However, if we are loving each other at the time, they don't roll away from me in disgust just because I have called them by the wrong name.  In moments of intimacy they are happy to just take the love as it is doled out.  As long as I don’t stop rubbing their furry, little tummies I can call them whatever I wish.  They are not proud.

When Looki came to us I was not so certain about this name.  That is, I liked the name Looki, but when I actually saw his passport it said 'Lucky' on it.  How boring!  But Spanish people pronounce Lucky as Looki, so I have just kept the pronunciation and changed the spelling.  I don’t think he can read or write, so I don’t think he will find it particularly confusing either. It suits him, Looki, Looki!  Or Looki Loo, when he is being very sweet.  Though when you say that to a Spaniard he sees Lucky Luke in his head!  I did consider changing his name at one time, but now it is too late.  It makes no difference really though, he is as sweet as he is with or without a name like George or Brad.

After we had agreed to take the girls there was a period of about two weeks, while I waited for Vic to come home and also for Lynne and her husband to get back from the UK.  Kerry and Candy were in kennels and though I was aching to have them and hold them, Vic and I had agreed that we would only get them when we were both at home together.  It was important so that they would see us as a couple and as their new mum and dad.  We didn't want Vic to just be a visitor and we are up against that obstacle anyway with him coming and going.  We were both adamant that we should have a great big initial bonding session.  Which we did have and I think it has worked a treat for the girls are always all over him the minute he walks in the door.  Looki is slightly more reticent at first it is true, but then I am his Beatch!  And boundaries have to be re-established on every new homecoming.  I find it heartwarming that by the time Vic is off again Looki's attitude to him has changed and he sort of hangs around with Vic like one of the boys!  I bet if he could open a can of beer and put his paw up at the bar, he would.

During the waiting period I researched changing a dog's name because, to be totally honest I was not that struck on the girls' names either.  However, what I read, much simplified, was this: If a dog comes from a bad home, it is a good idea to rename him as he associates that name with his former, hard life.  However on the opposite side of that coin, if a dog comes from a good home, like our two little girlies, then it is better to keep their original names, so that they can keep fond remembrances of their old life.

I studied the ways of training them to a new name, but as the weeks went by it became less important to change their names to something that I considered a perfect name and in fact why should I?  They had names and when I day-dreamed about their little whiskery faces and having girly conversations with them I slowly started to like their names.  When they did come to live with us and we met them for the first time, well I had to admit that their names suited them pretty perfectly. 

I have often wondered about names.  Do we subconsciously pick names that suit our children or pets or do they grow into the names that we give them?  The great nature/nurture debate.

Looki Loo is a big happy-go-lucky slob.  He is lovely and lucky, well, not so lucky in a past life, but now he trots along as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

Kerry is like a fussy mother hen.  Her name is mature and womanly and fits her personality.  She is a nag and a fusspot. Kerry can be snippy at times, but only to keep her errant children in line.  That includes me by the way and the little 'dolly' that came with her from her old home.  Her little Dolly is a stuffed toy dog with flappy ears.  Most of the time she lies discarded on Kerry's bed or on the couch, but every so often Kerry goes to look for her, grabs her and nearly shakes the poor creature to death first, but then lies almost in a trance with the dolly in her mouth, sucking and every so often just twitching her head almost imperceptibly.  It must soothe her.  I wonder if she yearns to be a mum or if she was taken from her own mum too soon.  I don't know and never will I suppose

Candy, as her name might suggest, is a bit of fluff; Candy Floss or Cotton Candy. Though near enough the same age as Kerry she is the perpetual teenager.  The baby of the bunch, she will never grow up.  She is smaller and lighter than the other two and when she looks at you with her head cocked ever so slightly to one side and her bed-head hair all over the place she has a slightly spaced out, quizzical look, like the proverbial deer caught in the headlamps or as my daughter pointed out on her first meeting with the girls "She just looks stoned all the time!"  

Fuss-pot Kerry, Space-cadet Candy, Big old slob Looki Loo