Yesterday was very interesting in my clinic. We had a busy day as is typical for a Saturday, and had many pets who dropped off for various kinds of check-ups and treatment. As the day went on we started noticing a rather surprising pattern. Multiple pets had the same names. And it wasn't just a couple of them! By the end of the day we had tallied the following:
Two dogs named Sophie
Two named Luna
Two named Charlie
Two named Bear.....with the same last name!
That last one had us staying alert, because two dogs were in our clinic for the day, both named "Bear Miller"! Yet neither family was related to the other. It was just a weird coincidence that they shared a last name, gave their dogs the same name, and came in on the same day.
It really was quite funny. But at the same time it could have been a disaster. We had to be extremely careful to make sure that the medical notes were being entered on the correct patient (we use completely computerized record-keeping), the right vaccine or medicine was given to the right dog, and when the owners picked up that we brought the correct pet up front. Having two black dogs with the same first and last name was especially concerning!
Thankfully all of my staff was at the top of their game and there were no mixups at all during the day. Each pet got exactly what they needed and went home with the right family.
But believe it or not this isn't the first time something like this has happened. It's rare to have two pets with the same last name from different homes, but it happens. We also sometimes have more than one pet with the same name in a given day, especially with common names like Buddy, Bear, Bella, etc. But having four sets of "clones" was pretty crazy!
In the spirit of the day, I'll leave you with this classic from Weird Al Yankovic....
Two dogs named Sophie
Two named Luna
Two named Charlie
Two named Bear.....with the same last name!
That last one had us staying alert, because two dogs were in our clinic for the day, both named "Bear Miller"! Yet neither family was related to the other. It was just a weird coincidence that they shared a last name, gave their dogs the same name, and came in on the same day.
It really was quite funny. But at the same time it could have been a disaster. We had to be extremely careful to make sure that the medical notes were being entered on the correct patient (we use completely computerized record-keeping), the right vaccine or medicine was given to the right dog, and when the owners picked up that we brought the correct pet up front. Having two black dogs with the same first and last name was especially concerning!
Thankfully all of my staff was at the top of their game and there were no mixups at all during the day. Each pet got exactly what they needed and went home with the right family.
But believe it or not this isn't the first time something like this has happened. It's rare to have two pets with the same last name from different homes, but it happens. We also sometimes have more than one pet with the same name in a given day, especially with common names like Buddy, Bear, Bella, etc. But having four sets of "clones" was pretty crazy!
In the spirit of the day, I'll leave you with this classic from Weird Al Yankovic....
