What's in a name? I'll tell you!

17.
Q. A married couple that I had just met introduced me to their mini Doberman, Booker. They said that he does peculiar stuff. He won’t settle down. He is always milling about. He has trouble to relax and he regularly urinates upstairs on the rug. These people referred to the dog, a few time, in the course of a few short meetings as not being very bright, not like their old dog or current cat.

A. When I spoke to him, one of the first things that he said was that he didn’t like his name because ‘it wasn’t important, wasn’t really a name, didn’t mean anything. He wanted a name like Peter or George or Mike, one that meant something.’

He went on to explain his behavior. He wanted his mother to stop being so stressed out all the time and said ‘you’ll kill yourself like that!’ He was very concerned that ‘she thinks so much all the time, her head is always so busy. He could feel and hear her chaos, in her mind and it made him stressed out all the time. He was messing in the house mostly for attention. He wanted them to spend more time with him and to take him more seriously. 'He had a lot to say' but wasn’t being heard.