How to name your dog..

I took Ounce out to somewhere new this week and people were (as usual) completely entranced by her.  Everyone comments on her eyes (can’t think why) and often on her colour and breed – what is she?  On this occasion one person asked me what she was called.  Ounce I said.  Blank look. “What?” I repeated myself.  “What the f*ck?” I could see her thinking, but she was an elderly lady and much too polite to voice her incredulity at such a bizarre name for a dog.

I went into my explanation that she is named after a snow leopard, because she looks just like one.  They were not convinced, I could tell.

Yes, ounce is another name for snow leopard and she does look slightly like one. (Look it up if you don’t believe me).

However, that is not the only reason she is called Ounce – it’s a bit more complicated than that…  Here are the names of my previous 6 dogs:

• Rue – we were into herb names at the time, had Dill, Parsley, Sorrel etc
• Buzz – had 2 young boys, got cat called Woody
• Sunny – born Midsummer’s Day, hence Sunshine. Also character in the Series of Unfortunate Events (sharp teeth, didn’t say much)
• Luna – one of the Harry Potter litter.  Also goes with Sunny rather well
• Aura – one of the princesses.  Also born the year we saw the aurora borealis
• Busy – hmm, now I need to tell you about the other reason…

Look at the list above and the way the names are spelt.  When I had Aura, I planned to spell it ‘Ora’, as that is the end of her name.  However, my son Adam pointed out that if I spelt it ‘Aura’, then all the dogs would have a letter ‘u’ as the second letter of their names!  Wow, we were excited about this coincidence.

After that, we started to think about words that have a ‘u’ as the second letter but also sound different.  It’s great fun when you get going.  Here are a few examples:

• Sugar
• Quin
• Purse
• Ouzel

I’m sure there are others – what a fantastic language English can be!

So that was how Busy came to have her name.  I thought she would be busy, rushing around all the time and it’s true, she does rush around in the woods and at agility, but of course she is also the calmest dog you have ever met 😉  Usually people think it is spelt Bizzy, as that is more of a ‘name’ way of spelling it, but of course the whole point is that it makes a different sound but has a ‘u’ as the second letter.  I don’t care, Busy is a great name.

Ounce also has a link to me, as we can both be associated with pounds.

I decided that perhaps that should be the reason for her name.  After all, she did steal an ounce of my heart when she arrived.

Whatever, it is fun to have such a different and unusual name. It’s not hard to spell and it isn’t as odd as Spoons, Boots, Toggle and Jumble, some of my other pups (or is it?)  Lovely puppy xx

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