Constable: Will Trump, Hillary, Bernie, Jeb or Rubio go to the dogs?
Human celebrities haven't named a newborn Fido, Rover or Spot - yet. But more and more dog owners are choosing human names for their canine companions.
”Year over year, our data shows that more pet owners consider themselves pet parents, and they're naming their dogs as they would their children,” says a spokeswoman for Rover.com, an online network of dog sitters and dog watchers, which charted the most-popular dog names of 2015.
If you walk into a suburban park and hear a woman yell, “Max,” there is a good chance she's calling her dog, not her son.
Max remains the most-popular name for male dogs. Other popular names for male dogs include Charlie, Buddy, Cooper, Jack, Rocky, Toby, Duke, Bear and Tucker. Bella is the most-popular name for female dogs, followed by Lucy, Daisy, Molly, Lola, Sadie, Maggie, Sophie, Chloe and Bailey, all of which are fine names for little human girls, too.
Just three years ago, fewer than one in five dog owners chose human names for their pets. Last year, 49 percent of dog owners opted for regular old human names.
“Discovering your neighbors named their dog after your kid isn't an insult at all,” the Rover spokeswoman says.
“According to our data, the things we love influence how we name our pets, including our favorite foods, sports teams and TV shows and even politicians,” she adds.
“With President Obama hailing from Illinois, it's no surprise that the most-popular politically themed dog name in Chicago is Bo,” the name of the Obamas' Portuguese water dog.
Of course, Reagan and Ike remain popular in some circles, while Bernie, Franklin and Chelsea are hot choices for others. While it's unlikely that anybody named a puppy Santorum, there probably are some frisky little pups named Hillary, Rubio, Jeb!, Cruz and Carson. Somebody with a huge dog might opt for Trump.
There already is a legendary dog named Trump. Nineteenth-Century English vicar John Russell bought a dog named Trump because of her superior hunting skills. Russell bred Trump and her offspring to produce the breed now known as the Jack Russell terrier. As a boy, Dwight Eisenhower owned a Jack Russell terrier named Flip.
Eisenhower, as did most of our presidents, had dogs in the White House during his time as president. Presidential dogs predate the White House, as George Washington started the tradition by owning and breeding foxhounds, including ones named Drunkard, Tipler and Tipsy.
Dogs can be nice political props for candidates. Grouchy, plotting and paranoid Dick Nixon used his little dog, Checkers, to make him appear human. Architect of “A Great Society,” Lyndon Johnson fell far short of great in 1964 when he was photographed lifting his beagle named Him by the ears. That dog's sister, Her, swallowed a stone that year and died. Him was struck and killed by a car in 1966 while chasing a squirrel near the White House, according to the LBJ Library.
During my childhood, our farm was home to dogs such as Pete, Taffy, Sniffer, Fred and Caesar. But we did have a yellow barnyard cat we named Goldwater. Just like his namesake, 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, our cat was cantankerous, made a lot of noise, failed to win over his peers and eventually disappeared from the landscape, perhaps done in by the tomcat we dubbed LBJ.
Having a dog that shares a name with our next president works no matter who wins the White House or where your political tastes lie. Either you can take pride in your presidential pooch, or you can quip, “If you think (insert new president's name here) made a mess of the economy, you should see what (insert your dog's name here) did to the living room carpet.”