Animals And Their Names

[poliphilo]

The two Chrises have brought us a couple more horses. They're Snowy- also known as Baby- who's been here before and a foal they've recently rescued. Older Chris said the foal was nameless but younger Chris said it was called Patch- just like the stallion who was with us over the winter. Did he make that up on the spot? I rather think he did.

Do animals need names? Dogs do, but most other animals only have names for their owner's convenience. Our cats are only intermittently Marlowe and Pickles. If I'm trying to summon either of them they become "Cat-cat". Otherwise Marlowe is Mr Orange and variations thereon and Pickles is Blackstuff and ditto.

My mother's name for Marlowe is Ginger Whiskers.

Comments

[oakmouse]

Most of our pets have had a rotating list of nicknames in addition to their "official" names. Our last cat was Tigger, which name she hated, so she was called Ignatz, and Tigris and Euphrates (my dad's name for her), and Tiglath Pileser (my mom's name for her), and Meatloaf, and THE CAT (emphasis in the original), and sometimes "YOU BAD CAT!" She answered to all of them impartially. Only the name Tigger made her lose her temper and refuse to respond.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that I don't know if they need names per se, so much as a collection of familiar sounds they know refers to them.

[poliphilo]

Yes, that's it.