Dog naming and other oddities

This morning I decided to go to Razzmuffin’s Blog to do my weekly check on whether anything new was posted and found Razzie placed an article on his site called “Bo Obama and the Obamamization of America”. In that article he referred to a local Phoenix DJ named Chuck Powell and a comment he made on his show the other day. Chuck apparently made commentary upon the media’s insistence upon giving the White House dog a last name. Razzie also gave the address to the Chuck’s Blog Cabin site, so I decided to go check Chuck out.

On that blog I saw Chuck posted an article called “Does your dog have a last name?”… I thought it was hilarious and you may as well. Now before you Obama fans out there get all excited over a perceived attack upon your idol, it should be said that my impression is that Chuck is apparently attempting to find some humor in a president that even the big time comedians are having a hard time in needling. The reasons this phenomena occurs mainly deal with the official excuse of “The man is so intelligent that there is nothing to pick on”, so instead of finding, or making up, stuff anyway (as was the standard MO of late night talk show hosts and comedians everywhere) – they leave an awkward void. It’s good to see a guy like Chuck treat the president as he would any other president by trying to find something funny to rib him about – even if that joking is in the abstract sense or round-about way.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to the point of the media apparently fawning and gushing over the Obama’s to the point of having to give their dog a last name.

Let it be understood that I am not talking about calling your dog “Buster Puppy” or your cat “Hell Cat”, I am talking about giving the animal your last name, such as Fluffy Smith or Butthead Borowitz. I have met people who called their dogs “Sgt. Slaughter” or “Mr. Bones, but they often referred to the animal as “Slaughter” or “Bones” as if the name was a first name and the Sergeant or Mister part was a title. I even knew a woman who gave her cat a first and middle name, after her grandfather. She used the initials commonly to call her cat, but her vet always called the cat by its proper name.

Chuck pointed out that there were a few pets out there that were graced with a first and last name and another site I visited had an article, called “Naming Your Dog” by Sandy Moyer, claiming:

“Dogs are frequently named after actors, actresses and other celebrities. They’re named after popular sports figures, presidents, and politicians – past and present.”

I once knew a kid that named his dog “Mickey”, after Mickey Mantle, but no one in the family every referred to the dog by both names. On the other hand it wouldn’t shock me to find out someone named the family dog “Barack Obama”, “Michelle Obama” or even “Brad Pitt”. This doesn’t take a thing away from the point of the media’s insistence upon giving the First Puppy the Obama last name, especially when the White House web site didn’t list the dog by a first and last name.

It will be interesting to see what Chuck comes up with on this issue of giving last names to the family pets, but I suspect he’ll find that last names for dogs and cats are a rarity.

Upon searching the net I have seen this Bo Obama name listed by the score. It would not surprise me in the least to find out that many people out there cruising the net and paying attention to the media will adopt the idea of giving their pet a last name as well… simply because the media did it for the Obama family. On the other hand people are lazy creatures, they like to try to shorten names. So even if they give their pet the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt they will still call the dog “Frank” or “FDR”.

I wonder how many dogs out there are called “JFK” or some variant?