This is a story that always irked me:
A friend of mine named Alice adopted a new dog. She named the dog Mason and was in the process of getting his paperwork filled out when she received an email from a good friend of hers who was pregnant that said the following:
Do you think you could change the name of your dog please?? Mason is on the short list of names we're considering for the baby!
I felt like Alice's response should have been, "Screw you." But instead she actually felt guilty about the fact that she didn't want to do this.
Now I'm not a dog person, but I think it's pretty obnoxious to tell a person that their dog is so unimportant that they need to change his name just to avoid picking a name they might use for their child.
Let me tell it from the other side. My younger sister was still in college when my first child was born. First visit to my parents home, we put a blanket on the floor for the baby for some pictures / diaper time.
ReplyDeleteThe dog came over to look. My mom scolded him and told him to go and lay down. My sister called him over and he turned to walk over the baby / blanket because that was the direct route. I picked the baby up and my mom scolded the dog.
My sister response? It was the dog's house first and we shouldn't put the baby where the dog wants to walk - the newborn needs to learn he has to share the space...this from an early childhood development major?
WRT the name. Normal for the parents to say 'oh darn' and remove it from their list. Normal to have a conversation with the new owner comparing similarities on the respective short list. Normal to have a child and a pup with the same name run into each other - I'd say let it go folks...and if this lowers Mason's standing a a baby name, so be it.
I think your story is different, because it's potentially a safety issue. (If it wasn't, then I don't know what the big deal was.) I mean, if the dog were instead a 2 year old child, you wouldn't let the 2 year old clobber the newborn either.
DeleteBut you wouldn't ask a friend to change the name of their baby because you were pregnant and considering it yourself, so why would you ask someone with a dog to do it?
I was thinking opposite because you said "it's pretty obnoxious to tell a person that their dog is so unimportant that they need to change his name" and my sister that the dog was so important that the newborn would just need to learn how to deal.
DeleteAnd, the dog was very good about not walking on blankets because my mom crafted by laying them out on the floor. It was just the wiggling, cooing bundle of joy overroad his training. So, telling him to get off the blanket and lay down would have been enough, if my sister didn't call him over.
I know it isn't nearly the same.
I did hear the family story of the SIL on one side being upset the SIL on the other side used the same baby boy name. So, one couple had 2 nephews less than a year apart with the same name. They have been in the same place at the same time, SIX TIMES (in 30 years) but one was very upset that her son's name was used and felt the other should have removed it from the list when she knew it had been taken.
I hate to tell folks that when they get to school, there will be others with similar names.
We had a bunch of baby names we vetoed because we knew dogs who had those names. Perhaps it would have been different if they had been owned by less annoying people.
ReplyDeleteThe above story: Yes, the dog should not step on the baby. On the other hand, if the dog is not used to babies it is unreasonable to expect it to know to stay away. Also, it may seem silly that the dog "owns" the house, but in reality some dogs can get pretty possessive of their spaces. You don't want the dog to bite the baby because it's guarding its space. So while it *seems* stupid, and probably the dog owners should sequester the dog while you're at the house with the baby, it's also an animal safety issue.
I told my roommate in HS that my dog had the same name as she did -- because I liked the name. She went all mean girl on me and didn't speak to me for like, a month. People are weird.
I had a similar experience. Met a new couple at some social function. When she said her daughter's name was Holly I said, without thinking, "I have a dog named Holly," and got a thoroughly DISGUSTED look from her. I mean, I'd had the dog for years and her daughter was a pre-teen. It isn't as though I named the dog after her daughter. (Although she did keep on speaking to us.) As the number of pets I began to acquire grew and my imagination waned, I started numbering rather than naming pets and I've noticed that this doesn't happen any more.
DeleteHildy, if you said it to me I would have laughed it off. But it is bad taste for pet people to make correlations with someone's children (though your was not intentional).It is equally bad taste for anybody with a child to give grief to pet people, trying to stick their child between pet owner and their pet.
ReplyDeleteRandom share time: I want to name my future dog Kumquat, after the fruit.
ReplyDeleteTo the above story: You can't really expect a dog to know not to step over a baby and to walk around a baby instead. And not all dogs have the same attitudes towards babies, familiar or unfamiliar.
We threw out names based on people we had known that were jerks and azzholes. Naming a baby after a dog would have been an improvement.
ReplyDeleteIn the dog story, I don't see why the dog had to be scolded. It was doing what it had always done, and had no idea it was doing wrong. You'd want the dog to go and sniff the new baby, so it knows it is a harmless visitor, like dogs sniff hands of strangers and accept them once they've sniffed.
ReplyDeleteWith the dog stepping over the baby, at least the dog accepted the baby enough to step over it. All the dog would need would to to be taught not to walk on the baby blanket, but scolding the dog during that moment would just confuse the dog. Lots of being told NO! around the baby could make the dog really nervous around the baby and cause more problems in the future than if everyone had taken the situation calmly.
And yeah, I would have named my dog what I wanted even though the name was on someone's baby list. Our baby name list had the name of my SIL's dog on it. By by baby name! I certainly wouldn't make her change her dog's name to accommodate me, even though she was fine with us using the name for our potential child.
Steve Irwin named his kid after his favourite dog..... Actually, Indiana Jones named himself after the dog too. I think that baby person should grow up and get over themselves. My sister rcently had her first girl (after 5 boys we thought it was never going to happen). The baby's middle name is my first choice of baby name. At first I was all sad but then I thought "screw it, I love that name, I'll use it anyway". Because I'm sure IF that kid ended up having a name the same as the dog of his parent's friends, his life would be ruined and he would endure untold psychological damage including species confusion ("am I a dog or boy?") and end up in the loony bin.
ReplyDeleteAlso Mingle, Kumquat is such a cool name for a dog, you should get 2 and name the other Loquat, and then get a cat and name it Sasquatch because all 3 names really roll off the tongue and sound awesome when you call them for dinner.
...Indiana Jones is a fictional character. The only one that named him is the writer that made him up.
DeleteCorrection... Steve Irwin named his daughter after a dog AND an crocodile.
DeleteBindi = his favourite crocodile (also means "girl")
Sue = dog named Sui
Good lord, people! You don't get to trademark baby names! I have a brother, a brother-in-law, and a cousin all named Eric... and no one could care less. Sure, it gets a little confusing at large family events, but that's where nicknames help out. I didn't complain when my old residency director named her daughter the same as mine, when she gave birth just 2 months after me. Instead, I laughed it off as a hazard of picking one of the top names of the year. Oh, well.
ReplyDeleteI love it when I discover someone named their kid the same thing as mine. It doesn't happen much.
DeleteI would just tell them that the dog only responds to Mason now. So sorry...
ReplyDeleteTo me a dog is no less important then a child. It's too bad if the name is on 'their' list. It doesn't mean there can't be a dog and child called Mason.
ReplyDeleteI think it bothered me more that they asked her to change it based on a name they were "considering", not even their first choice.
DeleteI am giving my dog and first son the same names. Decided this years ago. Maybe I am just cruel.
ReplyDeleteI have had friends tell me not to name my kid a name they wanted because they "thought of it first"! Huhh? Lol.
My idiot ex-husband named his first kid after a dog we had when we were married.
ReplyDeleteMy aunt's dog and our cat are named for my gramma, who passed away shortly after. It's a positive reminder for us.
ReplyDelete