How do you choose a pet's name? Do you have it in mind before you meet the animal? Does the creature remind you of someone or something? Or does something about the cute critter inspire you? Well after setting eyes on her new cat, one woman knew exactly what to name the kitty, only she's now under fire for the name she picked.
She shared her story on Reddit, explaining that four months ago, she and her fiancé were looking to adopt a cat. They found a middle-aged one that had been at the shelter for a while, likely because his black and white pattern formed a penis shape on the cat's face. While that might be a turn-off to some potential adopters, the couple thought it was funny and endearing.
They met the cat and he was super sweet so they adopted him and, since the shelter didn't know his name, they got to give him one. The woman wrote, "Seeing how the thought of this cat having a penis face would be the first thing to anyone's mind the moment they saw him, we thought it would be a funny little icebreaker to name him Richard." As you likely know, one of nicknames for Richard is especially applicable to the cat.
People seemed to like it, even the woman's dad, whose name is Richard. However her sister-in-law was not amused. She described what happened when her sister-in-law visited writing, "She said it was completely inappropriate and 'a disservice to the cat and the cat's feelings, since I made fun of him with this name, unbeknownst to the cat himself' and that It can be categorized as un-physical animal abuse.' I told her the cat doesn't even speak English so his feelings aren't hurt at all, so I don't see the problem here. She then got mad at my fiancé because he's 'enabling me to abuse an animal who can't control what coat pattern it has,' so now she has ghosted us."
Nearly all of the commenters who read the woman's story disagreed with her sister-in-law. One person stated, "Not only did you adopt him, you celebrated it with his new name. You’re not being mean to him, you’re turning what was an unfortunate circumstance into laughter and love. But also the cat doesn’t care. It’s a cat lol." Another said, "Unphysical animal abuse? What woke nonsense is your sister in law a victim of?"
Plenty just loved the name choice as well as the cat, with many comments like, "OMG!!! I’m not a cat person, but I would die for Richard!🥰" You can read more here.
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