Importance Of Giving Names To Your Pet

naming pets

For most pets, their names are the first things they learn. With that in mind, your pets names should  be something easy to say and pronounce for you, as well as for anyone else who may work with your cat, dog or whatever pet you have. The tradition of naming and loving animals, opening our hearts and homes to them, has been practised for a long time and it is carried on well until today.

Pets Are Seen As Part Of The Family

Many people regard pets as important members of the family and just like everyone else they should have a name. By assigning a name to your pet it allows you to treat it just like an important part of the family and not just an animal. Also, pets are much smarter that we give them credit for. There are even other pet owners that believe that pets are not less intelligent than human but have a different kind of intelligence. Thus, naming them is necessary to easily identify them as well as addressing them. Apart from being protective over their owners, or providing company to their owners pets need to be treated like individual animals that deserve to be given a name. That way you can call it, address it and interact with it like an individual member of the family.

Throughout the world, it has become commonplace to give our pets all sorts of names. This is because a lot of people consider their pets as part of their family as mentioned earlier. In specifically traditional Asian cultures, common pets such as cats and dogs are not usually given human names because it is perceived as insulting to the people with the same name. However, consuming these animals as food carries the same taboo in the East as does in some parts of the world and it is more than likely that a family-like esteem for pets  or the lack of it, is equally perplexing to both.

People Cherish What They Name

It is important to name your pet because it is more than likely that you will cherish your pet more if you assign a name to it. The way someone treats a domestic animal at a farm, for example and the way they treat a pet they have assigned a name to is very different. More care, time and attention is given to a pet that has a name compared to a domestic animal that has no name assigned to it. The amount of love and attention differs considerably between a pig with no name and a pet pig with a name for example. Thus, naming pets is important because it shows how much care and attention will be given to the pet.

Besides the history of naming animals and welcoming them into people’s inner circles or homes has been practised for a very long time and many other unnamed animals have become extinct because we felt not empathy for them. However, conservationists have noticed that people are more prone to cherish what they name and have begun using that fact to help preserve species with whom we would not necessarily take home to.

Environmentalists in countries such as Rwanda have also adopted a similar approach to conserving the dwindling population of Mountain Gorillas. As part of a their tradition which started in 2003, every new born gorilla discovered born in the wild is celebrated in a widely-attended naming party, known as Kwita Izina. And that gesture has been positively affecting the country when it comes to conservation. Since the tradition began, Rwanda’s population of Mountain Gorillas has rebounded, increasing by about twenty three percent.

In New Zealand, a species of flightless birds called Kakapo was nearly driven to the verge of extinction last years ago from introduced predators. It was so bad that by the 1970s, only about fourteen percent of the birds were known to exist. As such, a conservation plan was developed that included finding and relocating all the remaining kakapos to an island with no threats and assigning each rare bird a name in the process. To this day, the kakapo continues to recover, and the number has increased to 124 individuals, and all of them have names.

Zoos, aquariums, and marine parks have also taken up the same thing and realized the powerful effect giving animals personal names has even on the visitors, and nowadays it is common for zoos to hold events or contests to name new born animals or to refer to them by name before their species. As a result, this adds up to create an emotional experience, that draws in the crowds more than a science-minded one. Animals that have names can become star attractions. An animal with a name sells tickets better than simply addressing them with a scientific names ever would. And it is no surprise that we care more about animals that we have given names.

People Are More Connected To Pets That They Name

Pet owners are more connected to pets or animals they name the same way they cherish them. It is common for pet owners to develop a relationship and connect to their pets if they have given them names compared to when they do not. Children especially develop a connection with their pets if they give them names and play with them.

Similarly, naming animals in zoos, parks and in the wild has allowed visitors to feel more connected to these animals. However, this has presented challenges for zoos, aquariums, and marine parks as well. In some cases there have been a lot of backlash when some animals are needlessly euthanized. This is because these animals now are no longer just any animals but are individual animals with names. By naming animals or pets these animals are given individual identities, and facilities keeping them captive create a challenge as people begin to care and once they care, they might not want at these facilities.

As such, giving animals names, even those that are not our pets, ultimately means nothing for the animals themselves, but it does change the way we look at them.