Shannon Stacey


Puppy Naming of Doom

In six days, we’ll be driving to the airport to pick up Baby Boy Stacey! And, while we’ve all agreed it’s best to meet the little guy before we name him so he’s not stuck with a name that doesn’t suit him, it hasn’t stopped us from talking about it practically non-stop.

The teen still likes Nano. It not only fits well with Mini, but appeals to our Apple-loving selves.

I’ve been lobbying hard for d’Artagnan. He’ll be our fourth furry family member, so it amuses me. The concern my family has is that there’s no way to shorten it. We’re not very good at using the names we gave our pets.

Jinx answers mostly to Fatkitty or Bitchkitty. Gizmo’s most often called Gizmodo in a Godzilla-voice. And Mini…Poor Mini. She was called Mini-Me by her birth family, but there was no way I was having a dog named after that stupid movie. The boys thought it was wrong to change her name, so we compromised and her “legal” name is Mini. The boys call her Min. My husband calls her Stupiddog (all one word). He always has, but with affection. More often than not, I call her “Bells”. Why? Mini–>MiniBella–>Bella–>Bells. We’re not sure how we could mangle d’Artagnan, but we’d probably find a way.

I’m having to run every suggestion the Short Kid makes through Google. Names like Borusa and Harrison and Finch. He’s bound and determined to trick me into have a dog named after a Doctor Who character because, considering how strongly I detest that show, it would amuse him for many years to come.

The husband mostly says “No”.

We’ve actually referred to Baby Boy Stacey as “the little peanut” so often, there’s a very good chance his name’s going to end up being Peanut. BUT, when we got notification he’d come through his neutering with flying colors, the Short Kid started calling him Peanutless, so I’m not sure how that’s going to work out. Knowing my family, the poor little guy would be called Nutless for the rest of his life.

I think we’ll just know when we see him. In six more days!

17 comments to “Puppy Naming of Doom”

  1. Veronica Scott
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    1
      · October 28th, 2011 at 9:39 am · Link

    Fun post, good luck on newest family member. I too vote for D’artagnan! But you’re right, we never call our pets by their proper name either. Had a big huge Maine coon cat named Huntington that we all called Hunny.



  2. Julie
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    2
      · October 28th, 2011 at 9:50 am · Link

    Artie!

    (course you’re talking to someone whose family choose for different names for a dog and none would budge! )



  3. Jaci Burton
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    3
      · October 28th, 2011 at 10:04 am · Link

    Guh. He’s so freakin cute. I can’t wait for pictures when you get him. You need to text me photos when you pick him up!

    You should name him Maximillion or Maximus, then call him Max. Then you’d have Mini and Max. ;-)

    And we always rename/nickname our dogs.



  4. Jean
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    4
      · October 28th, 2011 at 10:12 am · Link

    d’Artagnan shortens easily to (and, to me, naturally) to Dart. Since he’s liable to be mischievous, you have The Dart of Doom. Maybe he’ll be a quick little guy, so Dart fits there as well. I think you have plenty of ammo to call him d’Artagnan if you want.

    Mini and Max works very well, too.



  5. Leah Braemel
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    5
      · October 28th, 2011 at 10:24 am · Link

    I was chuckling until I got to “nutless” and then I really was laughing out loud. Thanks for the laugh today, Shannon. Love your puppy stories…



  6. MinnChica
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    6
      · October 28th, 2011 at 11:36 am · Link

    OMG Nutless is awesome!!! I think I shall start calling my lab that!!



  7. Danielle West
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    7
      · October 28th, 2011 at 12:05 pm · Link

    From experience being in a family that does not stick to the animal’s ‘legal name’ no matter what you name him now, a nickname suitable for some mishap or bad habit will showup no matter what :)
    My poor orange stripped kitty was named Raja for a couple of days before he was dubbed Dances With No Brains. Our boy tabby- Dumb Tom. Our cat that had a lot of ear hair went from Cali to Cali-Bob for multiple reasons. And the newest kitty- She was named Princess Sophia -> Princess-> (three yr old in the house) Pissass -> Piss. Yep, Piss.
    Our long time family dog is named Sadie… but there is a very long evolution of her name that has led her to Buck.
    And I love peanutless- SK is genius. If ever you ran out of blog material, you could let the Stacey men do a guest blog! ;)



  8. Lynda the Guppy
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    8
      · October 28th, 2011 at 1:18 pm · Link

    I’m totally with you on the Mini —> Bells thing. My aunt had a dog named “Malarkey” and he ended up being called Parker.

    Malarkey –> Malarkapus Rex –> Parkerpuss –> Parker.

    his “sister” Mischeif ended up Burger…

    Mischief –> Miss Chiffie –> Chiffie –> Chiffie Burger –> Burger

    Good luck in naming Baby Boy Stacey. For my .02, I like Nano. Peanut’s cute, but it could go Nuts/Nutless or Peas (which sounds like “pees”) so either way, you don’t really have a good shortened name.



  9. library addict
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    9
      · October 28th, 2011 at 3:12 pm · Link

    I like D’artagnan, too.

    The teen named our dog Ezekiel after some video game character. That was shortened to Zeke much to the teen’s dismay. But he spends most of his time with me and for some reason I often call him Z-dog. Not sure how that started. He also gets called Wiggle Butt a lot.



  10. Corinne Bridges
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    10
      · October 28th, 2011 at 3:12 pm · Link

    The peanut analogy is awesome….Doomsday, since you are counting down the day to arrival would be my choice though!! :)



  11. Shannon
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    11
      · October 28th, 2011 at 4:44 pm · Link

    I was wrong. My husband DID make one suggestion.

    No-Heuvos.

    I vetoed that one, though the boys thought it was hilarious.



  12. kaetrin
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    12
      · October 28th, 2011 at 6:27 pm · Link

    I know what you mean. Pets in our family have their names altered took. It started with my dad. The cat named Cork became Bushy because that’s what happened to his tail when he was grisly. The cat named Patches became Benny, which was shortened from ‘Black Face Benny’.
    Now its my husband doing it. Er have a cavalier/poodle cross named Dash (after Queen Victoria’d cavalier), but now he mostly gets called Puppetus or Puppet, which came from ‘pup’ or puppy. Sometimes he gets called schmuppet – it must be very confusing for the neighbours!



  13. kaetrin
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    13
      · October 28th, 2011 at 6:31 pm · Link

    Danny you auto correct!! Sorry, typing this on my phone.
    Grisly = frisky
    The other typos are because either my keypad’s too small or my finger’s too big!



  14. kaetrin
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    14
      · October 28th, 2011 at 6:33 pm · Link

    Oh crap. I give up!



  15. Tracy S
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    15
      · October 29th, 2011 at 10:50 am · Link

    I like Nano and I agree with Jean that I was thinking d’Artagnan shortens easily to Dart.

    We are really boring around here. Our cat’s name is Cloudy (she is mostly gray with a mix of browns–like a cloudy day) and we call her….Cloudy. LOL



  16. Carol J. Garvin
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    16
      · October 29th, 2011 at 1:40 pm · Link

    You lost me at ‘Nutless’! Having bred, raised, trained, shown and loved more dogs than I can count over the past 30-odd years, naming has always been a challenge. First there are the CKC-registered names we want the pups to live up to. Then there has to be a short derivative we’re willing to scream out the back door when we’re trying unsuccessfully to get their attention.

    He looks adorable in that photo — a bundle of fluff. But Fluff isn’t something an author wants to be associated with. A few of our oddities: C’s Rusty Robyn -> Rusty -> Smuckers (he was a kisser); C’s Elizabeth Barrett -> Sonnet -> Stupid (don’t ask); and C’s Bingo Boy -> Bingo -> Bimbo (because he was one) -> Bim (because I couldn’t bring myself to holler “Bimbo, come!”). Good luck with your naming. Whatever you choose, it’s bound to get changed.



  17. Shannon
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    17
      · October 29th, 2011 at 7:49 pm · Link

    It’s getting crazy over here. One of the boys suggested Ninja, which led the other to Samurai, nicknamed Sammy. They think being a poor nutless boy with three furry older sisters of the canine and feline variety, he needs a bad-ass name.







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