Saturday 15 November 2008

A dog by any other name

What has happened to dogs' names? They used to be Rover, Spot, Blackie and so on, or Ben, Bob or Meg for sheepdogs. Not nowadays it seems. There are a number of dogs that I meet on a fairly regular basis when I walk Fern in the park in the mornings. Rob and Jake are both collies and have what I regard as regular names. But then there are Indy, Mabel, Willoughby, D'Arcey, Sally, Molly, although I suppose those last two are not so far-fetched. But earlier this week there was a young puppy in the park and he and Fern played together for quite a while. It was not until I was talking to the dog's owner another day that I learned he was called Muga. Apparently that is a Spanish wine, although it's not one that I had ever heard of before, and is the favourite wine of the owner and her husband.

My favourite wine is probably cabernet sauvignon. The mind boggles at the thought of what breed of dog would suit a name like that. Or Heineken? Port and Lemon? Perhaps St Emilion?

Our last dog was a golden retriever named Bramble at the suggestion of the children. At first we thought it a slightly odd name for a dog, but strangely we discovered that it was actually quite popular and we met several other Brambles during the course of her life. When we got ourselves a springer spaniel I thought that Fern would be a suitable name - easy to call out without sounding stupid and appropriate for a breed that loves scurrying through long grass and the undergrowth. So Fern she is.

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