What's in a puppy's name?

It may be time to park Rover and consider something more imaginative, says Jonathan Young

- Jonathan Young

MAX FINDLAY isn't famous, but 25 million people remember Fenton, his labrador, who decided to chase the red deer in Richmond Park. The moment was captured on video and went viral, as poor Mr Findlay pursued the errant hound, repeatedly bellowing 'Fenton!".

It was a reminder that dogs' names can be very public, especially when carried by miscreants. On our little rough shoot, for example, no one recalls easily the host of well-behaved spaniels that have worked the coverts, but we all remember Piper, an enthusiastic' labrador owned by a major figure in the Arts world. His 'Piper, come HERE, you blankety-blank!', delivered in Shakespearian timbre, is now our standard catchphrase whenever we see a dog off-piste.

It's worth remembering this when picking a puppy from a squirming litter: whatever you decide to call it may come back to haunt you. But, despite their behaviour, Fenton and Piper bore perfect names for working dogs, in that a disyllabic word, with the emphasis on the second syllable, can carry over long distances when shouted, as Mr Findlay amply demonstrated.

It's a principle that's applied to most gundog and hound names, as Mark Hankinson, former director of the Masters of Foxhounds Association, explains: 'What they appear to hear is a form of Morse code-the long and short sounds that make up a word or a name. So a hound name needs to be at least two syllables long.'