It's always funny how things come down the pike.
Last night I write a little more about dogs as items about them hit the news and Internet, and sure as rain is wet, along comes another one today!
Once again, USA Today came through for the dog lovers of the world with an article about today's top names for both male and female canines.
Something that caught my eye was that the lists were compiled by Veterinary Pet Insurance, which has concluded that dogs tend to have more human-esque names today than the typical 'doggie' names of yore. However, this research was completed by surveying their rosters of insured dogs.
My question: Most of us do not insure our dogs. Those of us that do, in my opinion, are unlikely to insure the dogs they care for because they love them more than those of us who do not insure our four legged friends. I think in most cases we just have more money tied up in our dogs and more funds available to spend on them once we've taken them into our custody. So, what I'd like to know is: Do we who insure our dogs tend to personify them, as if they actually were a child? After all, we spend a lot of money on human children. Not all of us spend so much on our dogs.
My two dogs were free of charge. One just showed up out at the farm as a shaggy puppy, the other was offered to me after having been abandoned when her caretaker 'fled' to Colorado and never returned. I've never quite figured this one out - she came spayed and vaccinated, but with everything, including an insulated wood house, a large polymer travel carrier, and a six by twelve foot steel kennel. She was a roughly $1,200 dog that I got for merely agreeing to give her a good home. Go figure.
The first one to show up we named Blackberry. This was seven or eight years before the handheld PDA type device hit the market, so ostensibly the name was after the actually berry, not the gadget. Of course, the fact that he's black probably had something to do with it, too! When I took on two and a half year old Snickerz in September of 2006, her name was written in magic marker across the top of the travel 'crate', so that was a done deal. She's also black, so that had nothing to do with the name that I can see. I hope whoever it was hadn't been in the habit of feeding her Snickers candy bars!
To this day, I've never met a person named either Blackberry or Snickerz. Naturally, I do not insure my dogs. They're just farm dogs that live indoors when I don't have them outdoors for the day. They stay out at 'the ranch', not living in my house in town with me. I wouldn't mind a dog in here if it weren't for the fact that large, energetic dogs simply are not compatible with the kinds of things I do...my hobbies tend to involve paint, solvents, delicate parts, and occasionally hot and/or quickly rotating parts. Dremel tools and furry dogs are not a winning combination, I'm sure. Anything that sheds hair and wet paint don't get along so well, either. Of course, anything that breathes isn't usually helped by volatile organic compound vapors or toluene fumes. I can wear respiratory protection and leave when I'm done, returning when the air has cleared. That might not work so well for a pet of any type. So, I leave them out at the farm were the air is relatively pure and things can't get too much dirtier than they already are.
Different, I'm sure, in the case of a dog expensive enough for someone to insure.
One line in the article ponders that with child neglect and abuse in America, it is curious how much time and effort are being lavished on dogs.
I would tend to think that the people who splurge on their dogs more often than not do not have minor children at the same time!
Many people who are active experts in the realm of pets in America would agree that dogs are frequently treated as though they are full-fledged members of the family. Doggie schooling, marriages, diets, cremations, and cemeteries are not uncommon these days.
The ancient Egyptians were noted for often burying dogs in family cemetery plots. I had to smile when I read this in the article because when my grandmother died thirteen years ago, someone in the family mentioned burying her little MinPin mix along with her. Instead, I took care of him for a couple of years, before letting my aunt take him in 1996. He hung in there until about two weeks ago! During that time, he had to go on a heavy-duty diet. Turns out, he was 40% overweight. He was supposed to weigh five pounds, not seven!
For male dogs, Max, Buddy, and Rocky are said to be the most common names. I know, or have known, men who are known by each of those names. But they do still have a 'doggie' ring to them. Grandma's dog was named Friskie, which I always though was more befitting of a cat. Bella, Molly, and Lucy are said to be the top female dog names. My scoutmaster twenty years ago had a beagle named Belle. I've known a few people named Molly, and my grandmother's middle name was Lucile. I can't say as though I've met any canine Bellas, Mollies, or Lucy's in recent years. Where I'm from, people still tend to give dogs 'doggie' names, like 'Honeybear'.
My father gave my mother a black Cocker Spaniel in 1975 named Ben, not too long after they saw the movie Benji. Ol' Ben liked to take up position immediately beneath my cradle and from what I've been told, no one besides my folks could get anywhere near me without hearing a growl from Ben. A year or so later, Jenny, a white poodle mix came along. I'm not sure when Sam, the white German Shepherd with one blue and one brown eye came along, but I remember him pretty much as far back as I can remember anything. They've all been gone for over twenty years now, and if I wanted to I could start a list of dogs we've had since then. With just a couple of exceptions, they've all had human names like Tabitha, Gabriella, Ashley, Penny, and the like. None of them were insured. But then again, to my mother, they weren't pets.
They really were family.
And then I sit here wondering what it would be like to be Afghan, being told my entire life that dogs are unclean vermin and growing up in a society where no one has much to do with dogs.
No doubt, over there, someone is hearing stories of how we spend so much time and money on our dogs, going so far as to let them sleep in the same bed as we do sometimes, and shaking their head trying to imagine living in a world where that's acceptable...
Things to think about,
the TiGor
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