I am often struck by the imaginative and inventive names that people dream up for their animals. At the same time I have to confess that I am absolutely useless in coming up with anything even approaching innovative, in fact I barely even give mine proper names at all.

They do have names that they are registered with at the vet, sort of "official" names for when they need to be put down on a form of any sort - vet, inoculations, insurance etc.

But, by and large I think they get accustomed to listening to the tone of our voices, and will respond to words by the inflection or emphasis. For instance, there is clearly a difference between - "Want some grub? (which would rise at the end for the question) and - "Get your whiskers away from my ankles!" (the ending here having a more flattened, but emphatic sound, as whiskers round the ankles can be prelude to a nip). They seem to understand me very well, and conversely they manage to make their wishes known to us quite well.

For example - our old ginger boy does a pretty good version (to my ears anyway) of "O0000UUUUT" - when standing with his nose to the front door. And there is a definite command in the delivery. Mind you, he does sound a bit ratty in all his demands, but perhaps that just goes with being an older male of the species (any species).

They also get used to hearing all sorts of endearments, which they also must recognise by tone of voice. In fact, I admit that already today I have called the black and white girlie - My Treasure, Beauteous Maximus, Biggy Big Drawers, My Lovely Girl (sung to the tune of "My Lovely Horse" from the Father Ted TV comedy series), Boofums, and that's just what I can remember now. She preens and purrs at all of them, so she must know they are meant lovingly. On the other hand the ginger boy used to get positively huffy when I called him Boo'fuls, because he clearly thought it impugned his butch image and why couldn't I see that he was more on the lines of a Tiger, or Leo. He settles now for My Best Boy, or Lovely Boy, but mainly he pleases himself what he does and where he does it, anyway.

I do have great admiration for people who come up with witty names for their animals, and I think my favourites at the moment are those of a friend of a friend who has a basset hound called Deefer (D for Dog - get it?) and a cat called, of course, Seefer.

Whatever we call them, they need to know that we love them, and as long as we keep feeding them and providing warm shelter - why should they care? They just let us get on with whatever keeps us happy.

Thelma Mitchell © 2004