A Pup By Any Other Name Would Be As Cute

If you’ve ever spent a significant amount of time browsing the websites for (or visited) a humane society or animal shelter, you’ll notice that some of the rescue animals tend to have rather unusual names. I assume this is because the shelter employees don’t want six dogs named Spot and eight cats named Kitty running around and eventually run out of “normal” names to give out.

I adopt a dog with a rather unfortunate and strange shelter name. I immediately decide to change it and spend the next few hours mulling over the perfect one. After much hemming and hawing, I name her after a relatively obscure mythological figure. For the sake of the story, let’s say it’s Ariadne.

I am quite proud of the name I picked because I think it fits her appearance and personality well. With my dog now named, I sent a text and a picture of her to my friend.

Me: “This is Ariadne!”

Friend: “How cute! Are you going to change her name?”

Ouch. Fair, but ouch. (The dog kept the mythological name.)