Hellobee Boards

I actually thought of this a while back...we have a dog and refer to him as "dog" instead of his name. I spose it's because I want them to know what they are more than the dogs actual name? The girls do now recognize the dogs name since they hear us saying it but I still refer to him as "dog."

I do some of both. For example I usually refer to our dog by name but my parents have several dogs and we just refer to them as puppies.

For the most part categories - like I try to use cat for most animals in the cat family so as not to present too much into.

Our dogs are the ones that trip me up the most because I both use their names and dog.

@Mae: yup, same here! And yet I continue to say "dog" like they just wouldn't get it I said his name! Heh

DD is way too young to be be learning words yet but I speak to her using categories for everything but the dog (where I use both category and name).

D has always called our cat by her name, Padfoot. Well, at first she was just "Ah-wah," but we always referred to her by name. Any other animal we encounter is just dog or cat. Oh, but actually he calls our neighbor's cat by her name, Bella. So I dunno.