Wednesday 10 September 2008

origin of the dog name fido

Penny was named after the copper coin that is no longer in circulation in Australia. It took three of us a nice long hotel dinner and a lubricating bottle of wine to come up with this name, based on the fact that she was a red-head when she was six weeks old.

Now we think she's a strawberry blonde, but we still love her name. And we don't make blonde jokes about her - well, not when she's listening.

Newspaper editors seem to love using the name Fido as a a short-cut in headlines about dogs.. But I've never actually met a dog called Fido. Except for the giant sculpture near Fairfield railway station in Melbourne.

I stood near that statue some weeks ago handing out leaflets to promote discussion about the pros and cons of dog off-lead areas in our local parklands and I got to wondering why it's called Fido. Turns out it stands for Fairfield Industrial Dog Object! Seems it was erected in 2000 to represent the dog-loving community. Well, if the latest plan to restrict dog off-lead walking in Darebin is any indication of the Council's attitude to dogs, then I think they should re-name it. But that's another story...

Back to Fido as a name. As far as I can discover, the most famous dog of this name was Abraham Lincoln's dog.

I take a more in-depth look at this name in my new blog about the fascinating language that surrounds us and helps us make sense of our world.

6 comments:

Noah the Airedale said...

Councils have a lot to answer for. I'm sure ours is run by idiots however they did vote to allow our local oval to be a dog off leash area during certain hours. Much to some people's (more idiots) annoyance.

Noah xx

parlance said...

I think, by looking at your blog, you have a fair bit of room on your own property. Pity the poor dogs in our suburb if it gets more and more restricted, as I think it might here.From reading blogs from the US I get a horrible feeling they're further down the restrictive track than we are. I think it has a lot to do with litigation worries.

Misadventures of Widowhood said...

That's really interesting about Lincoln having a dog named Fido and possibly being the beginning of the generic use of the word/name. I love your new blog and have bookmarked it. Can't wait to get more time to explore it better.

Levi's mom

i said...

Hello Parlance, thank you for dropping by. Penny sure is a pretty dog!

Regarding the olive oil, you can apply the olive oil on its own all over Penny's hair till her next bath time. But I find this method rather messy though as the oil attracts more dirt when I take her out for walks. It's fine if the dog is staying indoor for the few days when you 'oil' her.

So I usually mix 1 tbsp of olive oil with the conditioner and leave it on for a few minutes before rinsing them out. Since Penny has thicker coat compared to my Happy, you can probably use a bit more.

Just test in on trial and error. If too little, you might not see much result. But if too much, the hair might be limp and dull.

I only use the olive oil on Happy every other bath time although it's fine to use it each bath time.

I find that conditioning the hair after shampooing each time improves the hair.

It takes a while before you'll see the result though. Hope this helps.

If you'd like to know more or exchange ideas on ways to improve the dogs hair, feel free to let me know. I've actually experimented different products and ways on Happy's hair.

parlance said...

Levi's mom, thanks for that comment. I've always loved language and the processing that needs to happen in our brains for it to happen. That's actually how your doggie blog first caught my attention.

parlance said...

Thanks, Happy. That's a great explanation. I'm going to give it a go and I will definitely keep you in mind for further advice.