How do you like your pronouns?

[mrspunkysmom]

For some reason, I grew up referring to cats as "shes" and dogs as "hes" although I did know that they came in both genders.

My cats are never and "it." My names don't leave room for gender confusion.

I usually ask the gender of a new critter that I meet before I mess up in a conversation.

[wolf_Q]

I call my dogs by the correct gender...at least most of the time ha ha I have four dogs it gets confusing sometimes. People mix them up sometimes but I don't care I don't expect people to know the gender of my dogs if they don't know my dogs...I don't correct them either unless they ask, I don't think the dogs care if strangers called them the incorrect prounoun, they are happy to get attention either way. I'm a groomer and with dogs that don't have gender specific names (or sometimes names that to me should be the opposite gender - like girl dogs named Max) I may say the wrong one because I don't know their dog yet. I've had people get really rude with me because of it which I think is silly, correcting my nicely is one thing, but getting snotty with me about it is another. There's a few customers that always refer to their own dogs as the wrong gender which I think is quite strange.

[Roxyluvsme13]

It bothers me, because Lily is a very dainty, girly dog, and people are like "Oh, he's cute! What is he?" I usually say "SHE is a Pomeranian..." It's hard to tell with Lily because of all of her hair and you can't see her pink collar, but even when she had a pink leash she still got called a boy .

I haven't had any experience with Brennan and people having gender confusion issues yet, but his hair is short, his collar is green, and you can see what's on his stomach, so hopefully people won't get too confused

[rosethecopycat]

I always had male cats until Bella. She is such a feminine soul.

No one educated should confuse her, as she is a multicolored Tortie Siamese.
I just giggle when someone calls her a boy.

[Miss Z]

I have a divided opinion on this and so didn't vote, heh. I think if I have a personal relationship with the animal, i.e. my own, or a friend's, then it's strictly gender specific. And it would get on my nerves if someone continually referred to Mercy as a 'he'.

However, from my personal veterinary perspective, I would say it's fairly commonplace to refer to an animal as 'it', even if the gender is known. Probably more so in the farming and equine world, but also when discussing pets with other members of staff. I believe for courtesy's sake I always refer back to he/she when in the presence of the owner, as again, I know it would drive me batty were the roles reversed. I generally refer to the correct gender and 'it' pretty interchangeably at other times.

That's just my experience of shadowing vets in practice, at least, and it sort of seems the done thing. It most certainly isn't derogatory.

[Barbara]

Here in Germany we have the additional problem that all cats are "she" as the generic word for cat, "Katze" is feminine. And the generic word for dog "Hund" is masculine.
Orion as a matter of fact has an identity crisis because everyone calls him "she"- he is a cat on one side and a very girlish looking on on the other side. But he insists that he is a boy and behaves like one

[Alysser]

I'm a little guilty of calling dogs and he or she, especially at work. For the LONGEST time, about a month...one of our fosters was called her by me, I thought HE was a girl. HIS name was Brownie, I mean, come on, that's a girly name!!

I do correct people when they call Mikey a girl, I mean how did you not know by his name??

[Scalisti]

I prefer he or she when the gender is known. If not, a guess is fine. One pet peeve (no pun intended) of mine is when someone knows the gender of their pet, and insist on calling him/her an it.

[jenluckenbach]

Since I often make the mistake myself, I try not to correct people. With me, you can tell me the cat is MR MEOW and 5 minutes later I will call him SHE. it's Simply a dyslexic thing. If you say right I will instinctively turn left. I have even read words that are not in a sentence to make it mean the opposite. (EX/ if I read a written letter that said "He did want to go to the party" I might read it as "He did NOT want to go to the party") And not even notice until rereading.
So, I do it, and other people do it, and I try not to judge or correct them. It is not a personal insult and most likely totally unintentional.

[sana]

I don't need to correct One Down looks like a boy and is one too! I call an animal it when I don't know its gender, but I call it a she or he when I know what it is. I don't like guessing genders and making a fool out of me, so, I just ask.