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Important notice for public-relations folks re: Fido and Fluffy
By Gina Spadafori
July 9, 2009
Any e-mail story pitch that contains the words “Fido and Fluffy” will hereby be deleted without being read in full. ”Fido and Fluffy” is neither clever nor catchy, and putting “Fido and Fluffy” in your media release as a synonym for “dogs and cats” pretty much marks you and your client as people who haven’t a clue about either.
Just sayin’. Carry on.
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Actually, a woman I work with named her dog Fido. She is a fan of Latin, I suppose. And here is the thing: her dog is likely the only Fido in all of Sacramento.
Comment by Mikey — July 9, 2009 @ 10:39 am
Every time I use, say, Baxter and Bailey in a story, my editors change it to Fluffy and Fido (or some similar cliched pet names). Grrr.
Comment by Kim Thornton — July 9, 2009 @ 11:35 am
I sometimes call my cat Sophie Fluff-a-baby but never would I call her “Fluffy” even though she is.
Comment by Colorado Transplant — July 9, 2009 @ 11:46 am
Could you add “furbaby” to that rule?
Gag.
Comment by Mary Mary — July 9, 2009 @ 12:22 pm
May I suggest ‘Toil and Trouble’ as alternatives?
Comment by Eucritta — July 9, 2009 @ 1:41 pm
I actually know a few people who have pets with “pair” names. Phyllis does — or rather did — when she had Fred and Ginger. (Fred has since passed.)
Seems pair names are more common for cats than dogs, though.
Anyone have pets with “pair” names? I once had goldfish named “Donnie and Marie” although for all I knew they could have both been males or females.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — July 9, 2009 @ 4:04 pm
I am petsitting Jackson and Lee. For Pollock and Krasner. Also have an F. Scott here. He lost his Zelda last year.
These are rabbits. I tell my friend, their owner, that these names are pretentious to the point of nausea.
Comment by Mary Mary — July 9, 2009 @ 5:19 pm
I have a friend who named her goldfish Brian and Justin after the couple on Queer as Folk.
Comment by Christie Keith — July 9, 2009 @ 5:33 pm
Elf, Sirius, Vixen, Gummitch, Yersinia pestis, Flea, Oghul Giamesh, Templeton, Psin Khan, Temujin, Asaheurus, Vashti, Starrie, Dragon, BuckyBeast, Shakthi, Delilah, Caliban. Rocky and Meg came already named by former owners. Nope, 50 years of cats & dogs and never a Fido or Fluffy in the bunch.
Comment by Anne T — July 9, 2009 @ 7:14 pm
How about Jake and Tiger?
Cody and Blackie?
Comment by H. Houlahan — July 9, 2009 @ 7:21 pm
Gina, I had a “paired” named duo. Brooklyn (lager) and Sierra (Nevada). Ales :) They were litter mate ferals that I needed temp names for and one was growing at about twice the size of the other (markings almost identical). So I started by calling them pint and half pint .. . Sierra passed away, but Brooklyn is still cruising on 16yrs later here at Casa Straybay ;)
Comment by straybaby — July 9, 2009 @ 7:26 pm
I have a Mr Peabody and am tempted to get another just to name it Sherman…
Comment by EmilyS — July 9, 2009 @ 7:54 pm
Well, we had two goldfish named Bert and Ernie, interchangable name wise.
When one passed on, we simply kept calling the other Bert and Ernie.
Sometimes we will use pair names in a litter. We had a Penn and Teller. We still have 8 year old Teller, Penn lives in Reno.
And we had a Larry, Darrel and Darrel litter once too.
Comment by JenniferJ — July 9, 2009 @ 8:39 pm
Is Fido a word in Latin?
Comment by Jorge Guzman — July 10, 2009 @ 3:58 am
Jorge, Fido is from the Latin fidelis. Faithful.
Comment by Lis — July 10, 2009 @ 5:01 am
I have to admit that I have used Fluffy and Fido in a press release when I first started working in pet health. However, I learned first-hand how annoying it is (I get press releases all the time too). Anyway, I have a pair of cats I have recently adopted (seperately from different places) that were already named. Their names are Rembrandt and Rinaldo.
Comment by Jason Merrihew — July 10, 2009 @ 7:28 am
Have a pair of goldfish named Fish and Chips.
My parents have a pair of sheepies named Penny Lane (Penny) and Eleanore Rigby (Elli)
Comment by Sarah — July 10, 2009 @ 7:54 am
Okay, true, the barn cats are Smeagol and Gollum.
Gollum is the one who bit me on the finger the day I brought them home. (No hard feelings. He was startled by Sophia, and antibiotics are a Good Thing.)
And the goats are Patsy and Edina.
I guess we only do pair names for animals acquired as pairs (in both cases, siblings). Which may bear some examination, since I get creeped out when people name human siblings with themes, especially twins with rhyming names. And since I never recommend that anyone acquire pups in pairs, sibling or otherwise, our dogs will retain their fierce individuality.
You’re all individuals!
We’re all individuals!
I’m not!
Comment by H. Houlahan — July 10, 2009 @ 9:54 am
I LOVE Patsy and Edina for the goat girls. Pass the vodka, babe.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — July 10, 2009 @ 10:14 am
I had two male cats named Mischief and Pandemonium. Unfortunately, we lost Mischief to heart disease a couple of years ago, so now we just have Pandemonium (Pande for short). But we also have three additional cats - Shadow, Pris and Sassy.
Comment by Deb — July 10, 2009 @ 10:47 am
I learned the hard way not to give pets “negative” names like Trouble and Pandora. Both of those cats definitely lived up to their names. The closest we ever came to “pair” names were when we had two kittens that we named Alice and Chessie (Cheshire).
Comment by Kim Thornton — July 10, 2009 @ 11:04 am
Our youngest cat — she’s about eleven months old, and a handful and a half — is nicknamed ‘Threat or Menace?’ Which I suppose qualifies in a way. And while I’ve not yet named pet in pairs, but I do have a collective: all my spotted corydoras catfish are named ‘The Herringtons.’
Comment by Eucritta — July 10, 2009 @ 11:36 am
A friend of mine had 4 cornsnakes named Olivia, Newton, Hyphen and John.
Comment by Louise — July 10, 2009 @ 1:41 pm
HYPHEN!!
Comment by Gina Spadafori — July 10, 2009 @ 1:42 pm
When I was in college I had goldfish named Darwin and Huxley. Then I got two more and named them Phil Collins and Beaver Cleaver.
Comment by Susan — July 10, 2009 @ 2:40 pm
At the prison where I train, each batch of pups is named after TV shows by the gaurds. My favorite was when Jan and Marsha of the Brady Bunch didn’t get along. It is true, you have to be careful what you name pets. What do you think little mate rescue clients Felony and Arson were like?
Comment by Nancy Freedman-Smith CPDT — July 10, 2009 @ 3:35 pm
All my dogs have “stories” behind their names, but the cats are Gato (he does not know it isn’t a “real name”) and Abby (named by the friend from whom I inherited her.
At a vet’s office I once met a charming cat named Eight-ball, for the markings on his face.
My all-time favorite cat names belonged to cats I never met, but wish I had: Brazen and Shameless. They were owned by a fellow named Grant Hussey.
elaine
Comment by elaine — July 10, 2009 @ 8:11 pm
oh Gina: FIDO AND FLUFFY on ABC world news tonight story about petairways.
you can go shoot yourself now.
‘-)
Comment by EmilyS — July 14, 2009 @ 4:21 pm
A friend has a racing greyhound ( not track racing) from a purposely non track litter but not AKC either. His name is Brazen, and he is. But it’s his littermate Jammin’ who will probably end up LGRA dog of the year for the 2nd year in a row. Snoopy, an IG who held that title for 2 years, will probably come in 2nd again, because of the number of IGs versus greyts competing. “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)
Comment by Anne T — July 14, 2009 @ 5:26 pm