My dogs name is Bella, and she is a green eyed yellow lab. The story of her name is one of reluctance and chance. I started pheasant hunting last year when I moved to Minnesota, and found out that I loved it. I am from Wisconsin where deer hunting takes precedent to pheasants. I decided shortly after that I wanted a dog to train and hunt myself. Growing up I had a Golden Retriever, but never a trained bird dog. My live-in girlfriend thought that getting a dog was too much life altering responsibility, but she could see that I really wanted to get a pup.

Now comes the naming of Bella.
My girlfriend agreed that I could in fact get a dog on one condition: she gets to name her. I thought, “Great, I am now going to have a hunting dog named Candy or Princess.” Instead, due to a series of books she had been reading (teenage girls love them and they made a movie about the first book,) she decided on the name Bella.

We picked Bella up on February 8th and have never looked back. She has been a great dog so far. I can’t wait until October to take her out on her first hunt, and the name Bella rolls of the tongue pretty easy too.

My dogs name is Shadow, she is a three month old black lab. My grandpa had black labs all his life. He had a Brandi and of course Shadow. When he was 60 years old he had a heart attack and passed away when I was six. Shadow was born on March 25 just six days before my birthday. She was born in Baldwin Wisconsin. I am 12 years old so I want a good gun dog for my first hunting season. So, I named my lab Shadow Brandi in memory of my grandpa

I have a Boykin pup that is about the same age as Pritch, and this was one of my finest unauthorized purchases to date!!! I am married and have a 5 year old daughter. Needless to say the house and lifestyle lacks many of the masculine features that I was used to growing up in a house of 3 boys. The truth is that I needed a bit more testosterone in the house and the dog seemed like the best way to get there. I named him Hondo. This is the location of the annual dove hunt on opening day and will be his first dove outing....Hondo, Texas. I also felt that it was an appropriate reference to John Wayne (nothing feminine about the Duke!!!).

Thanks for the articles.....I am experiencing a lot of the same things and it is great to hear how Pritch is progressing. This is my first Boykin and I believe that I have found the perfect dog for myself!!!

I have 6 dogs...where to begin?

Ruger- I love Ruger firearms...
Rocket- self-explanatory...
Naja- named after a video-game heroine...
Zeus- everyone needs a dog named after a greek god...
Ruby- named after the Ruby River, MT...
Keesha- dont ask me, my wife named her...

I'll declare myself ineligible for the prize, but here's my dogs:

Dubh Linn (aka Dublin) - Irish for "black pool" and the name of my pound puppy black Lab, which I got not too long after a life-changing trip to Ireland.
Aengus - Stuck with Irish theme and went to Inishmore, where there stands a prehistoric fort called Dun Aengus. Of course, out here in beef country, everything thinks he's named after a cow.
Kitty - My first dog, a Lab/Golden cross. I just loved the look I got when I yelled, "Here Kitty, Kitty!" and a dog came running.

A true son with an account of finding man's best friend.

Long before she was my wife, before I knew her actually, Megan named her chocolate lab puppy Jest Fur Elise. This is her official AKC name, its after her sire and Megan's favorite classical song, Fur Elise by Beethoven. We call her Ellie, smelly Ellie, Ellie bean, Beany, Beaner, and Elise marie when she gets into trouble. Our other lab was a rescue and he came with a name, Remington. A little over done I think but that's what it is. We call him Remmy, Rem Bone,bone head (he is kinde thick headed) and Remington when he gets in trouble.

My gsp's call name is Brewer, his full name is (Morningstars Brewer The Kidd). My wife and I are graduates and huge Appalachian State University fans. We met and fell in love in Boone , NC while we attended APP. We still have close ties with lots of people in Boone, so Appstate is a huge part of our lives. The football Stadium is named Kidd Brewer Stadium after an old coach. Brewer is a perfect fit from every angle.

My dogs name is Oreo andhe has black and white blotches all over his body. We named him that because we couldn't decide what to name him so one of our friends said to just name him Oreo.

My other dog is Pete, he's a light brown and white beagal. I went to go buy some goats with my 4-H leader around the Nebraska/Iowa border. The guy we were getting the goats from also raised and sold beagals. Pete was a bit older than they guy liked to sell em so we agreed on a price. That has to be one of my best purchas yet. He's my right hand dog. I'll take him quail and grouse hunting with me. He does'nt retrieve, but if I need to scare some birds out of thick brush all and got to do is point and tell em " go get em " then wait for the birds to fly.

My Boykin Spaniels name is Beaver Swamp Buster. This was given to him because I have owned and hunted Boykins for years. I knew this would be a good forcast for his years to come. Needless to say, he has not let me down

Well for starters i am a 14 year old male from N.Y. I am one of five kids and have a little mutt, and a yellow lab that ive tryed to train and she wouldnt lissen. I just bought a new Golden retriever for duck and goose hunting we named him jake. Hes a playful curious dog willing to learn, and loves water. My father and i go duck and goose hunting every weekend during the hunting season. We had use to have a brown lab named Jake. Jake the went with us every week we went, he knew when we were going hunting. He was trained from the time he was six weeks until he died. Jake was a great dog, if there was a cripled duck on the other side of the lake we wouldnt even be able to keep him in the blind. He loved everything about it. He never looked for a treat, all he ever asked for was to get out on the lake and be a retriever and he was by far an amazing dog. With my new jake i want him to be able to follow our brown labs paws and love what he does. I've been reading a duck book about how to train them and for how long so ive been following the book along and its going alright he still needs alot of work but hes only 6 weeks so i got alot of time to teach him.

it was highly interesting reading about everyone's dogs, they truly are our best friends...

I have close personal relationships with several dogs. I remember them all. My first was an English Springer Spaniel that was the best lap dog on earth. She came from the pound with papers and we called her Gypsy because she was one. We gave her unconditional love. She died when I was ten and I cried because she was my first love. We bred her to a field trial champion several times and kept the best she ever had. A dog named Kong because of his liver markings that resembled King Kong. That dog could hunt. Eventually my dad got an English Pointer and named him Sam after the man we purchased him from. There was never a finer animal that did what he was genetically engineered to do. He was also a cold blooded killer. My dogs have been named Grizzley which was a half Akita, 1/4 Red Wolf and 1/4 German Shephard. He would kill someone if they attacked my family and yet never bit a human but he loved to kill other animals. Just don't try any aggresive behaviour toward my family if you are around. After that I decided to tone it down a bit and got an old Black Labrador Retriever named Midnight. 15 years later he died and we now have a promiscuous Yellow Lab named Blondie...

My dogs have had old lady names. Emma first, now Frannie. I adopted them that way, unfortunately. Not sure how I got lucky enough to get 2 old lady names in a row. Great dogs, lethal to any and all house and yard pests, but not so killer names.

I named my black lab, Little Black Sambo. I got that because, one day while sifting through my basement, I came across a small childrens book. I started reading it, and, it had to be the best book I ever read, if you want, search "Little Black Sambo" and I'm sure you'll find a link to it. Too bad he's not "Little" anymore!

We have a female german shepherd. I got outvoted by the kids, so her name is Dutchess. I was filling out the AKC papers to read "Dutchess, Wrecken Mein Haus" which is German for "Wreck My House". My wife wouldn't let me. I think the name would have fit perfectly- she chewed a hole in the siding just last week...

Here's how we came up with the name our yellow lab. My wife and I love to visit microbreweries when we travel. We thought about and jotted down some basic names that related to her light yellow color. We finally came up with "Hefeweizen" - our favorite German wheat beer. Since she had to have a registered AKC name, he "proper" name is “Sunflights’s Pint ‘O Hefeweizen” though she’s known daily as “Hefe” (pronunced Heffy). (Sunflight was the kennel/breeder we bought her from) I guess like Prichard, it shortens nicely to Hefe which is how your order this beer at the brewery. Plus, we preferred something with two sylables since it's generally easier to say (or yell when she's fooling around out in the decoys and a flock is spotted on the horizon). Our second choice was “Cider.” If she was a chocolate lab we may have named her “Porter” (my favorite dark beer). And that's our dog's story...

My gsr/lab mix is named Savage after Savage Arms the other dog where we got him was named Winchester haha.

Balzack
we were sitting around the fire one night i had just picked up my shepard mastiff mix from the pound. My buddy looked across the fire and saw me squirming in the chair. He said it looks like your balzak is itching. ( At this point he had down a few beers and speech clarity was gone.) well as the other looked the puppy was scrathing his ear. some though he was talking about the dog so, the name stuck. Balzack.

My dog's name is Pita. She is a yellow lab. Everyone that sees her thinks it's because she looks like kinda like pita bread, but her name actually means Pain In The A**. This is because as a puppy she was a little pain in the a**. She lives up to the name very well.

Well my first dog was zazu, named after the Lion King character... came up with the name because the dog was suppose to protect me and my brother like Zazu did in the Lion King. My second dog was named bandit because he was very "sexually mature" and decided to "dance" with anything and everything. Sad to say that they are gone now. Those are two that I think are the best... my other dogs that I have now are named Truman and Marley but there really is not a story behind them.

My Chocolate Lab is Savage as in Savage 99. My wife suggested the name because I collect Savage 99's and the pup's sire was named Winchester because his owner collected... you guessed it.

This past spring my wife and I received a GSP puppy as a weddding present. We decided to name him Gus after the brass and bold cowboy in the Lonesome Dove series.

I picked out a name for my dog before I even knew what I was getting. After shopping around, we had decided against the English Bulldog and got an Eskimo Spitz. Not really what I would call a "mans" dog. Anyways, the dog grew on me, and I noticed we had a little Napolean on our hands. It was fitting, since we named him Reagan, which means "little ruler". He thinks he rules the house, and is about 30lbs. Definately little and a wannabe ruler. Totally fitting for him.

My dogs name is Windrift Magnum.This UK Springer is named this because the kennel were I bought him from asked I and all other buyers add the kennel name to whatever name we give our dogs.Magnum is given by me because of the way the Springer charges in and his pedigree of many National Champion Winners of England,Scotland and Ireland.I have never owned a dog of such great breeding and that is were it all starts.He deserves the name.

I named my dog "Grimmy" after the comic strip "Mother Goose and Grim" in the newspaper. Grimmy is a pit bull/boxer mix (mutt). He came to me as a stray pup around the fourth of July a couple of years ago, afraid of fireworks. As I was raising him, I noticed he had some of the mannerisms of his cartoon namesake. He likes to sniff out rabbits and quail in the desert around our house. I am trying to get him used to loud noises like gunshots, but living close to Edwards AFB and the fighter jets breaking the sound barrier hasn't helped. It's startling sometimes when one hits and having 52 pounds of dog in your lap. But all in all he's been a good dog. He's my "Director of Home Yard Security."

Well, since about 1 in 4 dogs have the name "Heidi", I wasn't going to mention it. She's a stocky terrier mix that stalks like a cat, flushes birds, retrieves and swims.

She also has a German shepherd paint job. She is named Heidi because she looks like a "little German shepherd girl". (Okay, the REAL Heidi was Swiss!)

Our other; "Slick", got his name for escaping from seemingly impossible places as a pup.