My column last week on pet names garnered some great responses from readers, who shared names of their pets.
In fact, one reader said the names she had for her animals were more creative than the ones I listed, and I must agree.
The womaan told me she got two goats to eat an acre’s worth of weeds: “We named them Cheech and Chong — made sense, because they were going to eat weeds,” she wrote to me. “We traded Cheech for a female, which we named Cheechie. She had twins, which we named AC and DC.”
The woman also said she found a kitten on a gravel road and named him Gillham after the road on which he was found.
Then there was her dog named Cena, after John Cena, the wrestler, and a cow named Milkshake.
Another reader shared the name of his hunting dog, or lack thereof.
“We once had a hunting dog that we never could come up with a fitting name for, so he was called Nameless all his life,” the man wrote in the email.
After I wrote the last column, I also thought of a few other pets in my own life.
We were not always the most original people in the world, looking back at it. My first dog was a black one named Cocoa. I was too young to name her, or even remember her. (All I know is the story I’ve been told all my life that when they weaned me from my bottle, they told me, “Cocoa buried it under the snow,” and I bought it.)
We lived on a busy highway a few miles from town, and we had Snoopy 1 and Snoopy 2 who, bless them, didn’t make it. My brother and I did have a brother-and-sister puppy duo we named Fred and Ginger. Better.
We had a cat named Patches, whose fur looked like a patchwork quilt. Later, my parents found a stray cat, and my dad named it Puddy (as in, I tawt I taw a puddy tat.)
My 6-year-old nephew got his first puppy last year, and he insisted on naming her Speedy Girl, even though his parents tried, tactfully, to talk him out of it.
My daughter-in-law grew up in a dog-loving family — they had a beagle named Rose, after the character on Titanic — and among the two dogs and a cat she and my son have is a Chihuahua-Pomeranian mix named Zorro, which is Spanish for fox, and he looks a lot like one.
I’ve often written about our 21-pound cat, Ashton, aka Fat Cat; our little ball-loving terrier, Rudy; and our former cats Shoe and Bacon.
A co-worker named her cat — Jackson Browne Tabby Cat — after one of her favorite singers.
One of the questions we ask the subjects of our Front & Center features is about their families and pets that are part of the family.
The new University of Central Arkansas president used to have a beagle named Clarence — named in part after the angel in It’s a Wonderful Life, his favorite movie, as well as for one of his wife’s favorite students — and they now have a cat named Zuzu, also from the movie. And, not to be forgotten, their hound dog named Elvis.
They’re good. I think I’ll let them name our next pet.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.