How to Name Your Puppy, Unless the Puppy is a Peke

... in which case follow the late great P. G. Wodehouse's example, and make it Winky or Snorky (in fact, that was his name for his stepdaughter) or Boo.

Otherwise, please remember that the puppy's puppy days are numbered, and that what fits today won't fit when the size of the dog's body has caught up with the size of the paws. Baby booties can get bronzed, but a name is worn for life.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Imagination, but not too much.

1. First, do not let a child or children have the last word. My next-door neighbors did, and so their two calico cats are cursed with the appellations (not only is this place, i.e., Provence, wine country but papa is a marchand de vins) Pizza and Tweetie. Little wonder that they don't come when the kids call them.

2. Second, it's OK for you to get cute (every apricot toy poodle I've met here has been named Nana, and is usually identified as "le chien" or rather (with a Provencale twang) "le chieng"; and Dobie for a Doberman? You can do better than that...) but not too cute. An otherwise sensible-seeming next-village couple named their golden Lab Pyrrhus, as in "Another victory like that one and we're cooked," and then had to explain why to everybody who asked -- that is, to everybody. (I've forgotten their answer.) Heroine -- that (way back, before I moved abroad) was almost as bad: lucky for the puppy that she didn't know of their great expectations. Then when they discovered that people heard "heroin," they changed it to Girl.

3. Third, don't choose a name that makes people think that you've struck a deal with a pet-food company: no Fido or Alpo or (in the case of a bitch) Purina.
   
   On the other hand, I once met a litter of Irish setters, weaned within a tennis ball's bounce of a red-clay court, named Wilson, Spalding, and Tretorn, and only wished that it had been my bright idea.

4. Fourth, don't choose the name of somebody you despise or envy (cf. the right-wing rancher who taught me how to post -- not a Western rancher or saddle, obviously, but a New England one and an English one -- who named one of his show bulls JFK), because you will soon find yourself doing far too much barking, and maybe worse.

5. Finally, choose a name you never see anymore in movie credits, unless you're watching an oldie: William, say, or Basil, or Malcolm. You would never guess that the inspiration was, respectively, William of Orange, Basil Rathbone, and Malcolm X. And nobody ever bothered to ask.

Tips & Warnings

• Dogs like the sound of T. Tretorn is a double whammy.
• Poor Pyrrhus of Provence was poisoned to death by somebody who didn't like to see a Lab lovinbg life off his leash, and who obviously needed to brush up his ancient history; Pyrrhus of Epirus was killed by a rooftop sniper, of sorts. But play it safe and don't name your puppy after a warmonger -- even if you promise to nickname him "Tex."