Recently, a client asked me whether animals give their human companions names. Do they think of us by the names they hear other people call us? Or do they come up with a name or title to call us that means something to them?
Like people, animals are highly individual. They differ from each other in what they call their humans. Some of the reasons for this are circumstantial. When animals live in a home where they hear their human’s names said out loud a lot, they will usually think of their humans by those names. But when humans talk out loud to their animals often and refer to themselves by a title such as “mommy” or “daddy,” then the animal will think of their humans in that way.
But some animals do come up with other names based on what they think of their human companions. One of the funniest ones I remember was when a lady asked me why her son’s dog was affectionate to her son but not to her, though she always fed the dog and took care of him. The dog seemed confused that the woman expected affection to be a part of their relationship. He said, “But she’s just the doer.” In other words, she was the one who did everything for him, and was therefore not expected to have any other role in his life—even to the point that to him, she didn’t have a name, just a title, similar to “waiter!”
Still others don’t think of their humans by name, or maybe they don’t think of them at all, especially if the humans and animals in that household coexist but don’t have an especially close relationship. They may think of some family members by name, especially if they hear the name spoken a lot, and others are just a part of the human collective, known by their traits—the loud one, the one with the comfy lap, the one who feeds us. It’s similar to the way my husband is with our dozen-or-so cats; he knows a few of them by name, but thinks of most of them by description—the tabby, the black cat, etc.
In one communication I had with a blind animal on the subject of how she thought of her people, she “saw” each of the humans in her household as pillars of colored light. She had assigned a different color to each of her people, and could tell where they were and who they were by their color vibration. Pretty cool, huh?
I have always wondered this, but even after taking your classes I still never thought to ask! Thank you for talking about this! Love it!
Great information every time I’m on here.
Great information every time I’m on this sight I’m always learning about my furr baby ELLIEBEAR!!!
I am creating a bulletin board in a Senior Center to celebrate Love Your Dog month with the theme being ‘What has your dog named you?’
How do I explain how a dog would choose their name?
Hi Marla,
I love your bulletin board idea. I know it’ll be a fun prompt to help people consider themselves from an animal companion’s perspective. (I’m reminded of that prayer meme: “Please help me to be the person my dog thinks I am.”)
And thanks for asking such a great question! I’ll do my best to answer it.
An animal’s dominant mode of communication often dictates how they create or express their human’s name. I’ve noticed when communicating with animals that some are highly verbal, thinking and giving their answers in words, while others are more visual, showing images or short mind-movies to communicate their thoughts. Still others are more apt to share their feelings and emotions.
Animals with a highly developed sense of human language are more likely to hear and understand the names people give to one another, and they will learn and remember and think of the person by the word-names or titles (like Mom or Dad) that they’ve heard humans say. (Humans who talk to their animals out loud can help the animals to access and learn human language.)
Animals without a good sense of verbal language won’t be able to pick out specific names or words from the stream of gibberish sounds coming from their humans. Those animals will often identify their humans by visual traits or descriptions of what they do or how they act when they’re home. A lot of times, these are adjectives: The quiet one, the loud one, the sweet one, the scary one, the one you have to watch out for because they might step on you.
Multiple animal companions in a household won’t necessarily think of their humans or animal “siblings” by the same names. Some will learn the person’s given name, others will come up with an identifier that makes sense to them, and still others don’t see the need to use any identifier other than the feelings or duties they associate with the person.
I don’t know if I’m writing anything helpful or just muddying the water, so let me see if I can explain it by example: My husband Hans is many things to many people–and animals. To me, he’s Hans, or Sweetheart. To the kids, he’s Papa. To Georgia and Jed, our oldest dogs, Hans is Papa, because the kids always called him that (and so did I, whenever the kids were around).
Our next-oldest dog Pearl is five years old, and by the time she showed up, our kids were aging out of the family home situation, so Pearl heard Hans referred to by his given name more often than his title of Papa. Pearl realizes his name is Hans, but it’s more important to her that he’s the Cookie Bringer and the Instigator of Walks. Pearl doesn’t know or understand these words, they’re just concepts that she understands and associates with him.
Kailani is our youngest dog, just two years old. Partly because of her age and partly because of her temperament, Kailani is much more emotional / feeling than verbal or visual. I’m Kailani’s most important person, the cuddler. Hans may wake up first, but Kailani’s sun rises when I come out of the bedroom each morning. To her, Hans is “the other one,” the person she has to depend on when I’m not here. She still loves him and comes around for pettings on a regular basis, but she also understands that he isn’t going to sit around for hours, working with his laptop on the armrest of the couch and her head in his lap.
I’m Kailani’s primary person, and Hans is her backup human. But that doesn’t make him a second-class citizen, because he does most of the shopping and post-office runs, so he’s the one who comes home with the goodies! Kailani has learned by watching Pearl that Hans is the Cookie Bringer. When the truck pulls up into the carport, Pearl watches over the lanai, and if he gets out with a likely-looking box or bag, Pearl meets him in the kitchen, and Kailani is right behind her, ready for a handout.
The cats are different. To Blue Kitten, Hans is the loud / scary one, because he operates the lawn mower and the weed-eater, and both implements are definitely out to get Blue Kitten if he doesn’t run and hide immediately. Most of the other cats can’t be bothered to give us names, but if we’re late putting out their food, they’re good at yelling, “Hey you! What’s the holdup? Where’s my food?”
There’s really no right or wrong way to explain how this all works, because it’s so highly individual to the person and the animal in the relationship. It’s more important to give people multiple ways of thinking about it, so they can make their own connections. Maybe it would be helpful to provide some adjectives and name / title choices for people to choose from to describe how their dogs might think about them. Think about it as opening a few doors for people to peek through and make their own meaningful connections.
I’m so curious to see what your bulletin board will look like, and whether it will become an interactive experience for the folks at the senior center. I’d love it if you’d share a picture of your finished bulletin board with me so I can post it in this thread. Please let me know how it goes!