What's in a Name?

by Lonie Ward
From the December 1991 issue of Kerry Klips

When I was a little girl asking the proverbial "why?" questions, my Daddy had a crafty answer, "There's a reason for everything in this world, Lonie, except grape nuts."

And one of the questions that I still ponder are some of the strange monikers given not only to Kerries, but to members of many other breeds as well. At least the names may seem peculiar, until we know the reason behind that particular choice.

Take for example three of our champions. First there's Ch. Hiland's Baron of Sassy. Hiland was chosen as a kennel prefix, because it was an old family name. He was out of Ch. Melbee's Chances Are x O'Tamarac's Emerald Island, the dam's call name being Sassy. She inherited that designation at seven weeks old from our son, "Mom, look at the puppy. She's being sassy to Chip (our three-year old male Kerry)."

And she was aptly named. Sassy made a career of driving poor Chip to distraction with her non-stop antics. One day our son gave me an original drawing of his favorite cartoon, depicting his version of cartoon characters, Red Baron and Snoopy. It showed two airplanes, one labeled "Chip as Snoopy" with the dog drawn in a proper Kerry Blue Terrier suit and whiskers, and the other plane, swooping in with a like-outfitted Kerry in the pilot's seat, labeled "The Sassy Baron." The caption read, "Curses you Sassy Baron." So came the future name: Baron of Sassy.

Then Ch. O'Tamarac's Doulon (Ch. Blackthorn's Believe It R Not x Ch. O'Tamarac's Kelly Girl) was actually named long before he was whelped. Doug and I pondered, wrote out pages of possibilities, until we decided on combining our two names, Doug and Lonie. Viola! Doulon. Even sounds Irish!

When Ch. Glenneyre's Lord Digby (Ch. Tontine's Stowaway x Tontine's Cassy Capers) came into our life, he was already registered, but we needed a relevant call name. "Hawkes" was chosen because of our interest in collecting American Brilliant Cut Glass. Thomas B. Hawkes, born in County Cork, Ireland, in 1846, plied his family's trade of glass cutting. In 1889, The Hawkes' Company won the Paris Exposition Grand Prize for Cut Glass and thus established America as the foremost leader in fine cut glass. Though many other manufacturers made "American Brilliant" (so called because it is cut in such a way as to appear as brilliant as a diamond), Hawkes consistently cut some of the finest of the finest. It seemed fitting that we honor our "American Brilliant" Kerry Blue Terrier with the call name "Hawkes."

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