I Wanted to Name the Dogs — They Had Other Ideas
Quietly True — Stories from a shelter volunteer and animal communicator
When I adopted Stanley, he came with the name Ozzie.
It didn't fit him. I couldn't tell you exactly why — just that every time I said it, something was slightly off, like a picture hung at the wrong angle. I made a list when I got home. Elvis. George. Felix. Old man names, because he looked like one with his long grey beard, a bit cantankerous, even as a puppy — he was three months old and full of spirit. I tried them on one by one and none of them landed.
A few days later my friend Dave called while I was driving. We were talking about something else entirely when he said — almost as an aside — Stanley.
I knew immediately. There was no deliberating, no trying it out. It was just right, the way things sometimes are. And for seventeen years, Stanley was Stanley — everyone else knowing it too. It fit him so completely that it became hard to imagine he had ever been anything else.
I never forgot that feeling. The difference between a name someone chooses, a name you choose, and a name that's simply true.
Spring had arrived by the time I pulled into the Humane Society parking lot this week. The light had that particular quality it gets in the Pacific Northwest when it finally means it — low and warm, cutting through the Douglas firs along the river trail.
Every week when I walk into the room of kennels, I notice the names on each individual door. Does the name match the dog I see? Who decides, and whether anyone asks them. I want to be clear — I'm not here to take that job from those who work at the shelter. They get the privilege of naming. That's theirs. But in my own quiet way, I have always wanted that job. As an animal communicator, I would begin by asking the animal to hear what they had to say.
Today I couldn't ignore the question, because two dogs had no names at all. So with each walk, I jumped at the chance to ask them what they wanted to be called, and why.
Then I walked in and saw her.
A ten-pound silky terrier mix, caught in mid-pirouette at the kennel gate — it is rare to get a small dog at the shelter, rare to even get the chance to walk one. I grabbed her leash.
She didn't have a name yet. Here was my moment.
Her nose went immediately to the ground the moment we stepped outside. Her legs weren't more than half a foot tall, but she was an energetic walker — purposeful, interested, not pulling. We fell into a rhythm without needing to negotiate it.
She wasn't immediately interested in communicating with me. She was interested in the grass, the air, the smell of everything spring was offering. I let her have that.
After a few minutes I started wondering what her name might be. Buzzy. Bizzy. She was distracted, and honestly, so was I. I floated the names quietly as we walked. And once we both settled down, I asked her again.
Then Popcorn arrived.
She seemed to go along with it easily enough. I felt pleased with myself. We walked with it for a while.
And then something made me stop — not to confirm, but because I had been too quick to accept it, and I wanted to know where it actually came from.
Is Popcorn really what you want? Or are you just going along with me?
She shared a memory of a previous owner — someone who gave her popcorn sometimes, or sat beside her eating it. Not a sad thing. Just something she offered, the way you'd bring up something you liked about a place you used to live. Popcorn was a fond memory. She had been trying it on just as much as I had.
Then I asked her again. I got quiet and actually listened this time.
Really — what name would you like? If you could have any name.
And her quirky, amusing personality came through loud and clear.
Ted!
I stopped walking. Are you sure?
She laughed — not a human laugh, but the unmistakable energy of one. Yes. And I know I'm a girl. That's what makes it fun.
I offered Teddy, and she agreed. Perhaps naming is a negotiation between her and me.
I had gotten so caught up in the fun of naming that I almost missed it.
Between walks, I stopped at Bella's kennel. She has been here over a month now — a big, strong girl who people might walk past without slowing down. What they would miss is that she is the sweetest of all of them, with a personality that is quietly hilarious and entirely her own. I find myself wondering how she might be better understood — if her name was actually Bella. How someone might finally see what I see.
My last walk of the day was a gentle, deep-coated husky. When I stepped into her kennel to leash her, she tucked her nose quietly behind my leg. A hello. A thank you for being here.
Nobody at the shelter knows what I do beyond the leash and the poo bags. I show up. I do the work. I let the ordinary be ordinary. But in the middle of that ordinary work, something else is also happening. A quieter kind of listening.
She didn't have a name yet.
This time, I asked first.
She leapt into my telepathic field with Pluto, excited to be part of this game. I considered it — it felt somewhat right, so I asked her why she liked it. She said she wanted something cosmic, like Astro, but a name that set her apart. There was something in her that reached for that. Hearing her describe how she saw herself, I started to know her more deeply.
This was fun.
She was receptive. I asked her again. Are there any other names you like, or would like to be called?
Then it came with certainty: Molly.
Again, me surprised — the animal certain.
Something shifted when she said it. She arrived with it — more present, a certainty that hadn't been visible before. The name fit the way a good name does, not because it was chosen, but because it was recognized. She knew exactly who she was.
Then, underneath that, something softer arrived. A gentleness that the confidence had been sitting on top of the whole time. Molly showed me a feeling more than an image — someone gentle, someone full of warmth and a little spark. Someone she had known and cared for. She wanted to carry something of that forward, into whatever came next.
And then she said, very clearly: Don't overthink the Irish name thing, just because I look like I'm from Alaska. That's where humans go wrong.
I laughed out loud.
What I kept coming back to on the drive home was Stanley — and that moment in the car when Dave said his name and everything simply settled. I hadn't chosen it so much as recognized it. And that recognition was instant, unmistakable, nothing like the names I had been trying on before.
Teddy and Molly had that same quality. They weren't waiting to be named. They already knew what they wanted and who they were. They just needed someone to get quiet enough to hear it.
I thought I was finally going to have fun naming shelter dogs. It turns out the fantasy was beside the point. The moment I actually listened, there was nothing left for me to decide.
*The names of the animals in this series have been changed to honor their privacy while they wait for their people.
Lesley Ames is a psychic medium and animal communicator based in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. She volunteers with her local Humane Society and works with living animals, animals who have passed, and the people who love them. You can find her at lesleyames.com.