Naming our pets

I've always  named all my animals, big and small.  It's important for everyone to have an identity, right? So, this year, when our duck population grew and grew because of an abundance of hens with  motherly urges tugging at their little tail feathers, I became a bit overwhelmed; SO many families, SO many identical twins and triplets, SO many pure white Pekins!  I became lean on creativity and  to keep up with everyone, resorted to using easy to remember, yet somewhat ghastly names such as:  Frick and Frack, Easy come and Easy Go, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.. Eeeny, Meeny, Miney and  MO. These names were  quite a shift from my other duck folk who were christened with great deliberation and according to personality. THEY have names like: Winston Churchill, Jangles, Mia Rose, Pitty-Pat, Trudy Webbytoes , Miss Merryweather, Penelope Anna Marie,  and General Patton..
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Good Heavens, we have 3 duck families!

      In order to remember all the names of my chicken folk, I simply use the same names over and over again. I've had Conan the 1st, 2nd and 3rd and  Prudi the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. All the other characters from the old British TV series, "Poldark" have been used more than once, I assure you:  Demelza, Poldark, Verity, and Connie. Romeo, Mavis and Abe have been used countless times.

It's all becoming very confusing, but if I didn't give everyone a name,  I would feel so guilty! Is that silly? I am quite sure that when I see 5 pure white identical Pekin duckies hanging out together, I would not be able to tell Dominicus Pike from Sherlock... but No matter... it's better to call out a name than shouting out "HEY YOU, with the big orange feet, come over here!"

                    So why DO we name our animals? It's easy to see why we name intelligent animals such as dogs and cats and those larger members of the farm family.  It's pretty obvious that dogs recognize their own names, cats too.   But does a duck really come when you call it's name?  Well, maybe not,  but they certainly come a runn'in when I call "QUEEEEE! QUEEEEE! QUEEEEE! ( That means "corn" in duck-speak)  And when I call "GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRRRELS!, ALL my sheep, donkeys and goats come a runn'in. (translates: "corn, pears, carrots, watermelon,etc, etc, etc, to the four-legged barn -folk).   So WHY DO we names all our pets? I guess it just boils down to what I said in the beginning... everyone has a unique identity, even if they just waddle around on orange webby toes.

(The real Trudy Webbytoes, created in watercolor and gouache)