Monday, August 28, 2006

Nicknames

When the boys were just pups, we would give them cute little “pet” names.  Of course, Benjamin became Baby Benny.  He was called that a lot.  He is still called that quite often.  I will get into some of the other nicknames, but I must digress for a moment because it did cause some trouble when we were trying to teach them their names. 

When we were in puppy class, the teacher told us to only use their actual names.  For training purposes, they must be Benjamin & Henry.  The idea was so that you could easily get their attention and they could have name recognition.  To teach them their own name, we would say their name and when they made eye contact with us, they would receive a treat to reinforce that they recognized their name.  Well, the teacher said that Benjamin probably wouldn’t be called “Baby Benny” for his whole life.  Hmmm….he was a great dog trainer but little did he know that Baby Benny would never really “grow up.” 

In any event, I would like to share with you some of the nicknames that we have for the pugs.  For Benjamin, he is also Benjamino, Been Jammin’, Bean, Beanpole and Baby Bean.  I’ve also come up with a little poem that I recite to Ben when he is looking particularly cute or if I see that he is about to cause trouble.  It goes like this:  Green Bean, Jelly Bean.  Where’s my Baby Benny Bean?  Benjamin knows that this is not his “proper name” but knows if he hears something about Baby Bean, it’s about him.  He is a sweety.

Next up, I’ll share some of the nicknames we have for Henry, Luna and even Cupid the cat.