Preface<br > Ongramlations!<br > Presumably you re about to buy. or have just<br > otten， a dog， cat， gerbil， cockato~-~.~ius~ had a lit-<br > ter of sornething--~)r maybe you re tak/ng over a farm<br > and have hundreds of wonderful cows or horses to name!<br > Whatever it m.igbt be， if you re anything like me， half the<br > fun of getting a new mlimal is nal~aing it.<br > At first I tried to stay away from the usual~Tuffy，<br > Taffy， Ginger (you wouldn t believe how many Gingers<br > there are)， Rover and Fido (you wouldn t believe how few<br > Rovers and Fidos {here are). Well， in the end. I included<br > them a!!. H，，~r:; in ~t~e library， a~ ~he vet s， looking through<br > baby ~mme books， magazines m!cvision shows， dictionar-<br > ies， ~besauruses， almanacs， h-yoking around rooms， calling<br > my friends ... generally obsessing， as I tend to do.<br > Of course， I must admit that I made up a lot of them myself.<br > Naming things is something I love to do. It all started in high<br > school when I made up the name for our winter dance.<br > I actually won the naming contest! The Snow Ball (what<br >can I tell you ?). So， while not exactly brilliant， I won two<br >tickets to the dance and， if you can imagine， that started<br >me on a lifetime of naming things. (Now why couldn t 1<br >have won something everyone would have remembered me<br >for， like a beauty contest?! No one ever forgets who wins<br >that. I can assure you that no one even remembers that fate-<br >ful dance， no less the name! No less who named it!)<br > But， since this seems to be mv "thing，" I hope you can<br >sit back and enjoy looking through this book ... and， with<br >any luck， find the purrfect name for your pet!<br > Rita Blockton<br >