I AM obliged to Iain AD Mann (Letters, August 31) for his pithy suggestion that enhancing my moniker with the forename Jack would have been an improvement on my choice of Rover.

Sadly the former had been allocated to other members of the tribe and Bonnie Prince Charlie as favoured by Scotland's sheepdogs was deemed too pretentious.

In response to Dave Stewart (Letters, September 1) I too have never come across a Rover or Fido, although I knew a boy at school called Fido who allegedly once relieved himself against a lamppost.

Friend Google informs that Rover became widely popular after a short 1905 film Rescued by Roverand that Abraham Lincoln had a dog called Fido (Fidelitas, Latin, faithful).

So they come with a good pedigree.

Woof woof.

R Russell Smith,

96 Milton Road, Kilbirnie.

DAVE Stewart asks if any of us has ever called a dog Rover or known of one so called. Not as far as I can recall. My family did have a Manchester terrier called Judy, when I was about eight. I composed a poem for a homework activity, which went as follows:

I have a dog her name is Judy,

Always happy, never moody,

I give her biscuits, three or four,

Then she sits and begs for more.

I guess that cannot be called poetry, rather call it doggerel.

Thelma Edwards,

Old Comrades Hall, Hume, Kelso.

IN reply to Dave Stewart's challenge, I feel no need to confess, only to proudly and fondly remember that over the course of my childhood - in fact until I was about 20 – my family owned three beautiful border collie dogs, each successive dog being called Rover.

Maureen Lanigan,

31 Torrington Crescent, Glasgow.

DAVE Stewart wonders if anybody ever really named their dog Fido or Rover. My aunt had one of each, mother and pup. Rover was a gangster and bit postmen, but his mum was an aristocratic Gael who only answered to her name in Gaelic – Dìleas.

Dr Hamish Maclaren,

1 Grays Loan, Thornhill, Stirling.