Animals and nicknames

[rhyo]

I swear I don't do this to humans -- at least not as much -- but I have this terrible habit of giving defenseless animals nicknames. My dog started as "Tess," short for "The Countess" and "Tesoro" (yes, I have noticed a lack of required 's'es in "Tesoro"). From there, she's gone to "Tesseract" to Tesserae (sorry, Lissa) to "Tess-a-roonie" to "'Roonie" to "Zoo-a-roonie" to "Zut Alors!" to "Wicked Zoot."

As soon as I caught myself calling her that, she went back to plain old "Tess." Help me before I nickname again.