Boo

I have a very good friend who names all of his boats "Woo Woo", purportedly after his favourite cocktail. He is a lovely, kind man, but a simple soul, clearly easily amused.

I once spent a very humiliating five or ten minutes trying to call him up on VHF 16 in St Austell's Bay outside Fowey; "Woo Woo, Woo Woo, Woo Woo, this is Calstar, over?"

The adorably handsome blonde in the picture above is called Boo. We fostered him as a puppy, picking him up a few days before Halloween that year and he came to us already named, and whilst it may seem appropriate, whoever named him could've had no idea that he'd come to us on Halloween, so we can't use that as an excuse, although my wife has tried. 

But I'd sooner rename a boat than ever rename a dog. And I'd only ever rename a boat very reluctantly.  Case in point, I've not yet rechristened my unfortunately named Laser and instead simply refer to it as "the Laser", conveniently ignoring the fact that a previous owner did actually name her.

Like a number of our foster dogs, Boo decided to adopt us and stayed. He's eight years old now. He did grow a little fat and lazy in his middle years but has, for the last six months or so been on a diet and has lost a fair bit of weight and is once again trim and energetic. Albeit he is a master of stealing my bed the second I'm out of it of a morning, and assiduously conserving his energy until the exact moment he needs it later in the day when it comes to time for a walk.

I would say the only experience more humiliating than babbling "Woo Woo, Woo Woo, Woo Woo" over channel 16 on the VHF in an effort to call up a friend's boat, is wandering around the local park of an evening, trying to call your dog back.

When your dog's name is "Boo".