Katiepea, am I crazy, or is Flynn a calico? He certainly looks like one, but he's a boy.... Is he one of those extremely rare male calicos? Was he born sterile (with an XXY chromosome)?

Michelle - love the literary references! And everyone who posted photos, too too cute.

Everyone is adding photos-so I had to put up my babies as well!

Dana your birdies are beautiful! That blue is gorgeous! (Cute puppy too )

What great responses! Glad we're not alone Such beautiful pics too! Thanks....

My sweet kitty Ruby, and her not-so-sweet sidekick, Harley the cockatiel, have passed on. I really do miss them both.

In the past on particularly frazzled days, I just *might* have occasionally (mistakenly) called one or both pets by my kids' names. Or even worse, I would occasionally slip up and call the children by the pet's name. You mothers out there know what I am talking about!

montygoo and catulet! A tragedy in the making :D.....

I don't change my animals names but I have acccidentally commanded things like "sit" and "stay" of my kids when they were mobile babies......ooooops!

The scary thing is that I often refer to one particular pet by my son's name, as well as my son's nickname, before finally pouncing on his real name.

Our dog's name is Trixie, but we mostly call her Ding, which is short for something not very kind, but unfortunately accurate. She has also been called Dingus, Dingus Maxximus, Trixie4000, T4K, and for a while a few months ago, Killer, after she treed an enormous raccoon (she's a 12-lb dachshund).