Kiyomi Lowe regularly hears people mispronounce her name, or sometimes forget it altogether. “I get Naomi, Kaiomi, sometimes Kimmy,” she said. It doesn’t bother her: “I’ll answer anything.”
She is less forgiving when friends and acquaintances forget the name of her dog, a Shar-Pei. “I understand Bruno a lot,” he said. To which she replies: “No, it’s Brutus! The dog doesn’t care. But I care about the dog.”
Ms. Lowe is a stylist at Al’s Barber Shop, a popular six-chair salon in Boulder near the University of Colorado campus. On a recent morning, she got into a heated discussion with her fellow stylists and several clients about a delicate question: Should you be responsible for remembering her pet friend’s name? What is the etiquette?
“A big question,” said Jen Himes, a stylist who admitted she sometimes makes a misnomer, which hurts her. “I’ve gotten a lot of pet names wrong. I say, “How’s Pookie?” And he’s, like, “It’s Rufus!” or whatever.”
“Most people laugh,” he said. “But some people are, like, ‘that’s offensive.'”
When it comes down to it, he added, there’s a great way to determine if you’re bound to remember a pet’s name. “It depends on how important the pet is to your friend,” she said.
There was general agreement with this assessment in the barbershop (which happens to be the reporter’s tactic). The conversation mostly revolved around dogs, which, several people said, are different from other pets in that they get walked and get out and about, and thus deserve more name recognition than most private animal companions.
“That’s discrimination for cats!” objected Mrs. Himes. She laughed and told her she wasn’t too worried about it. Even she doesn’t always stick to the name of her own tuxedo cat, Cosmos.
“I call her Kitty,” he said.
Al’s Barbershop is owned by Al Urbanowski, who identified another key factor in determining whether you should remember a friend’s pet name: how important the friend is to you. Mr. Urbanowski, 58, still remembers Whiskey, the name of his best friend’s dog when he was 9 years old. Mr. Urbanowski now lives in a neighborhood full of dogs, he said, and his transient relationship with neighbors makes it difficult to remember the names of dogs and people.
Your interpersonal relationships change with age, he noted, and that changes what you can and should be responsible for remembering. By the time he was 25, Mr. Urbanowski said, dogs were a part of hikes and other social outings he took with friends and were a big part of those friendships.
“When I started having kids, dog names just rolled off the tongue,” she said. Remembering a dog’s name “is still a priority, but it has dropped.”
The team at the barber shop said some blame fell on the person trying to remember their pet friend’s name, but some blame may also lie with the pet friend, who could have chosen a pet name that was easy to remember.
“The funnier the name, the easier it is to remember,” Ms Lowe said. “Like Derek.”
Is Derek memorable? Yes, he insisted.
“Luke Skywalker,” Mrs. Himes offered, recalling a name of a client’s dog who stayed with her.
“Big Tuna,” said Madisyn Crandell, a stylist at Al’s, referring to the name of one of her mother’s two English bulldogs. (The other, Lucy, was considered by the team to have a less memorable name.)
“Doug,” said Jason Owens, who stood faithfully by as his 11-year-old son, Ryder, got a haircut. Doug was the name of a Corgi friend. “How could I forget a name like Doug,” said Mr. Owens. But she might forget Doug if it was a person’s name, he added.
Recently, the Owens family’s Rottweiler, Derby, died. Mr Owens said most friends didn’t remember Derby’s name, but it was good to remember his nickname, Checky.
“He was the sweetest dog,” Mr Owens said. “Dumb as rocks, but the sweetest dog.” He didn’t mind if his friends called Derby dumb. “I’d say, ‘Yeah, you’re right: She’s dumb as a rock.’
Others have trouble getting over a forgotten pet name. Christian Huerta, a receptionist at Al’s with a pit bull mix named Frida, had a friend who repeatedly called her dog Freya. Mrs. Huerta devised a plan.
“I texted her a lot of times when she was coming over and said, ‘Frida is excited to see you’ — like, I would say Frida,” Ms. Huerta said. “And my friend was like, ‘Freya!’ And I got sad”.
Ms. Huerta thought about it. “Maybe it’s not that serious,” he said. “Maybe I’m too sensitive.” He then likened it to forgetting something else important, like a birthday.
“I guess it bothers me because I love my dog ​​so much,” she said.
