The Name Game ‘Here, Kitty’ Won’t Cut It For These Folks

There are a million stories in the furry city.

At least it seems like it. Because after The Slice asked readers to tell how they came up with names for their cats and dogs, IN Life heard from A LOT of the region’s pet owners.

Here are a few of the tales.

Bob and Joan Welch, co-founders of Interplayers, became acquainted with their cat while the talented feline played a supporting role a few seasons ago in their theater’s production of “Lettice and Lovage.”

The couple wound up taking the four-legged thespian home. “She decided to adopt the name of the stage character she made famous - Felina, Queen of Sorrows,” they wrote. “She permits us to address her informally as Felina.”

The Spokane Valley’s Bradley Rice, 11, calls his cat CB, short for Coyote Bait, which should have been the name of its dear departed predecessor. (Don’t worry, CB stays inside.)

Moscow’s Tamara Shidlauski has a cat that used to sprint around almost constantly. Initially, his name was Speedy. That got changed to Zoomers. And now she calls him Boo Boo Kitty, after the stuffed cat in “Laverne and Shirley.”

Kitty Shelden wrote: “The funny beagle our family calls Phil is registered as Prometheus Mudbone. His first name stems from our younger daughter’s great fondness for mythology. His second name, Mudbone, arose from a story in the San Francisco Examiner in which a young couple, desperate to find a name for their unborn baby, blindly opened the phone directory and placed a finger on Jones, Mudbone.”

Kurt and Elaine Kimberling were shopping one day and had enough money to buy either a dishwasher or a dog. They picked the dog and named it Dishy.

Bob Wiley found a stray cat with an incredible array of injuries and maladies. The family named it Mutation, Mr. Mu for short. And he’s doing fine today.

Jeanie Thain got her cat at about the time she went on a trip to Tennessee and toured Andrew Jackson’s estate. The cat wound up being named Andy.

Leonna Asterino noted the huge feet on her family’s new puppy and named the dog Clyde S. Dale.

Eska, April Taylor’s malamute mix, is named after a chainsaw.

Music lovers Tara Leininger and Donivan Johnson in Metaline Falls took in a stray cat and named it Gustav Mahler.

Dottie Bender wrote: “I named my cat Scuzzy and the name describes her perfectly!”

Colville’s Nick and Candy Porter named their dogs Gayle and Dora, after an Episcopal priest and his wife.

The Hull family in Colbert has dogs named Dis and Dat and had kittens named Riff and Raff.

Ed Stack paid $10 for his Siamese cat, but ignored the exchange rate when naming him TenYen.

Inspired by a trip to Germany, Tracey Schirman named a new cat Heidel.

Edwall’s Sally Anderson named her cat Underfoot.

Mandi Bean calls her cat, Button, by the name Kiddums.

Ray Kranches has an 18-pound cat he calls Fat Albert.

Sharon Gould has a seven-pound “attack poodle” with the moniker Conan the Barbarian the 6th.

Carol J. Baker named one of her cats, Mather, after an Air Force Base in California that was her workplace for a time.

The list goes on and on.

There was Kirby the dog, named after the vacuum cleaner she emulated. Amelia, the cat that could seldom be found, named after aviator Amelia Earhart. A Himalayan cat named Katmandu. A dog named Lucky who was running out of time at the pound. A cat named Jackson after Jackson Hole, Wyo. (the tips of its ears look like the Grand Tetons). A cat named Jello, dubbed that after a little girl lobbied her reluctant father with the line “But Dad, there’s always room for Jell-O.”

There’s Mad Max Manx, a cat that thinks she’s a dog. A pair of canines named Ozzie and Harriet. A cat, presumably the family’s final pet, named No More. A dog named Nikki, after a Moses Lake publication then called the “Nikkel Saver.”

Readers also told about a cat named Carlisle, named after Kitty Carlisle. There is a cat named J.P. Patches, after the Seattle clown. And a sharpei named Wrinkles of the Royal Family, or WORF for short. (Yes, its owners are Trekkers.)

There’s a feline named Jigsaw, “the most beautiful cat in Spokane,” according to its owner.

There’s a cat named Graceless, who reportedly is just that. A cat who was named Rasta, in honor of Bob Marley. Also, a cat named Grunge, a cat called Dudley Do-Wrong, and a cat named Ripley, after the character in “Alien.”

More? You want more?

OK, Susan Williams said the pets in her family all get biblical names. So far, there has been Joshua, Solomon, Jeremiah and, well, you get the idea.

Lori Nudell has a Dalmatian named Spots.

Sharon Pearson has a cat named TB, which stands for both Tuna Breath and Tater Baby.

Candy Chapman let the kids in her neighborhood come up with a name for her schnauzer. They selected Cookie.

Then there’s a cat that, as a kitten, was quite a little biter and wound up named Barry Kuda.

Another reader told about a cat named Freebie that was exactly that, and which now weighs 22 pounds.

There’s a dog named Bang, which had a run-in with a firecracker early in life.

Coeur d’Alene’s Bob Trueblood has a cat named Seda, as in See da Kitty.

Hallie Hibbs has a cat named Charlie that reminds her of Charlie Chaplin.

Peg Lersch has a neighbor with an inelegantly named cat, Rupture. So she made a point of naming her kitten something lyrical. Her choice? Figaro.

Colville’s Holland family has a spaniel named Tony, after a relative of a friend whose name is Antone.

Springdale’s Susan K. Miller wrote: “We took in a stray black poodle mix. He attacked a huge German shepherd. So we named him Hulk Hogan. Called him Hogan for short. Then somebody said Hogie which led to Hogie buns. Now he is quite fat, so we just call him Buns.”

Jan Ramer’s husband inexplicably addressed their new poodle as “Hoss” and it stuck.

Julie Hunt’s dog, Roadblock, was huge as a puppy.

Mark Kenney’s dog, Ashes, was born on the day Mount St. Helens erupted.

N. Griffin’s cat is Friskers. Dorothy Carter Steiner, in Libby, Mont., has a dog named Tuffy Morton, after two brands of dog food. And the Elster family in Colville has a cat called Dances With Air.

Tami Cooper’s sweet little Yorkshire terrier is named Jellibean.

When it was 8 weeks old and still nameless, Wende Barker’s cat scratched a friend’s ankle. The friend said it felt like a thistle. “Eight years later, he still goes by Thistle, but now he goes for the knees,” wrote Barker.

A Deer Park reader wrote: “We call our miniature dachshund Pita. It stands for Pain in the A …”

Lind’s Rebecca Dutton’s poodle smelled so bad when she first got him, his name wound up being Pepe la Peu.

Bea Smith’s cat - “A tiny gray fluff” - showed up at her door on Halloween night in 1993. She named it Holly.

Colleen Lippert’s husband named their dog, Elliot, after a street sign.

Carol Hattenburg’s neutered cat is called Boy George.

Carol Pearce’s cat was so demanding as a kitten that Pearce named it Melissa, after a character on TV’s “Falcon Crest.”

Julie Schwab has a cat named Boo Radley and her brother, Joe, named his cat Scout, both from “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Newport’s Emily Jenkins wrote: “My cat’s name is Chaos. Need I say more?”

Kristy Bennett has a dog named Spike. Clark Fork’s Diane Newcomer has a cat named Tri-Pawed, which she claimed after the feline lost a leg following a bad accident. And Washtucna’s Bessie Allen said her granddaughter named kittens Tiny, Shrimp, Stinky, Boo and Twinkle.

Helen Ahern’s Chihuahua is named Trey Will O’Wisp Da Vaga.

Karla Litzenberger’s cat is called Little Joe Cartwright, though it isn’t all that little anymore.

Gerri Lockwood called her cat Velcro Patches because it used to get snagged on afghans on the couch and hang upside down until rescued.

Beth Sexton said her family called a beloved cat Herman, short for George Herman “Babe” Ruth. “A totally uninspiring name for a cat that ruled this diamond for 13 years,” she wrote.

Officially, Carol and Phil Kent in Lind call their dog Sir Ferguson Clarence LeRoy the First. But he answers to Fergie Bergie, among other things.

Lindell Haggin named a pure white cat Spot. Hayden Lake’s Jill and Ken Good have a talkative cat with big ears that they call Perot. Rosemary Schreoter and Paul Phillips named their dog Thira, after a Greek island where they honeymooned.

Lori Vaughn’s cat Pretty Boy Floyd is said to be lovely but nobody to mess with.

Chelan’s Marcelle Carpenter has had a succession of dogs named Duke. Her current Duke has, she wrote, “The longest tongue in the West.”

When Moses Lake’s Linda Emerick realized her family’s cat was actually male, its name was switched from Butterscotch to B.S.

Corrine Pepin calls her cat, found abandoned in a park restroom, Sontag. Maggie Fritz calls hers Dil, after a character in “The Crying Game.” And, inspired by “Cats,” Veradale’s Kevin Rogers named his calico shorthair Grizabella.

Dayton’s Bernice Swett told about a cat called Come On. And Luan Elizabeth Gordon sent a photo of a cat named Pawprint.

Jacqui Madsen’s family had a new kitten that disappeared and was not found until meowing could be heard coming from inside the furnace.

Her dad got a screwdriver and opened the furnace. And there was the wayward pet.

“We named her Smokey,” wrote Madsen.

And this is called The End.