Show Dogs and Their Crazy Names

by Aimee Amodio | More from this Blogger

21 Jun 2008 05:07 PM

Last year's Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show winner was a beagle called Uno -- his official name is Ch. (Champion) K-Run's Park Me in First. What a mouthful!

Purebred dogs tend to have long, crazy names like that. My mom's purebred German shepherd Shashi was officially named Wildwoods Scheherazade. Shashi is a much easier name!

So what's with all the crazy names? Champion is actually a title -- not part of the dog's given name. A dog has to win a certain number of "points" in competition before officially earning that title at the front of his or her name.

The kennel where the dog was bred usually has its name in there somewhere -- Shashi came from Wildwoods Kennel. Uno the Westminster winner was bred by Kathy Weichert of K-Run.

The next part of the name can be just about anything, really. Some breeders give all dogs from the same litter names that start with the same letter. All the dogs from Shashi's litter had names that started with S. The litter before had names starting with R, and the litter after had names starting with T. Very organized!

I know a breeder of American Staffordshire terriers through one of my online communities. The last time they had a litter, they asked community members for ideas. Their guidelines were that it had to start with their kennel name and the names had to be related to country music somehow. We all had fun coming up with ideas!

The American Kennel Club does have some regulations that guide the naming of purebred show dogs:

• All names are subject to AKC approval.
• Names are limited to only thirty-six characters. That includes spaces, punctuation, and letters.
• All letters must be from the standard English alphabet -- no other alphabets are allowed.
• Up to thirty-seven dogs of the same breed can have the same name.

Learn more about Aimee Amodio

Aimee is a fiction writer... dog lover... music lover...

View Full Profile | More from this Blogger