About, and the story in a name...

Inventing a project name is one of those things that seems to either happen in a flash of inspiration or one that never seems to happen, instead becoming bogged down in an agonising ordeal of brainstorming, chasing something catchy, well and truly trademark-able, and shining with that elusive sense of 'meant to be' serendipity.

And so it was with creating a pet news website, as it became clear all the puns I could think of had already been taken.

My weariness growing, I turned to the dog and asked, "Don't suppose you have any ideas?"

The muse was no more at his beck and call than mine, and off he went.

It wasn't long after, I remember it as hours rather than days, he was back, by which time I was eating my tea or dinner depending on your latitude.

He looked at me imploringly: a face of doleful, practised vulnerability with subtle notes of indignation.

It's a face that pet owners, particularly dog owners will know well, it's a face that says, "Come on, who's your mate? I'm your mate, and it would be good for us both - fair and just even - if you could share some morsel from your plate."

The end was in sight for the arduous, frustrating task of coming up with a name, trademark checks pending.

While I realise there's expert advice out there warning that feeding dogs from the plate encourages begging, in my view the dog had made a compelling point.

We were away, and I set about finishing creating the site and getting down to the tricky task of deployment.

As for the idea itself, I left a 15-year career as a local newspaper journalist in 2023 with a view to getting into programming of some kind.

This included retraining in 2024, but the job hunt didn't go to plan. It's possible I'd ostensibly left one career whose industry had been cannibalised by the internet and social media to join a field potentially facing a similar fate, this time one being slow roasted and devoured by AI, but in any case I needed to aim to create a professional grade app or website.

My thinking was if it worked on its own terms then great, if not maybe it might lead to a job, but I love freedom and my independence and animals too so the sweet song of the chance to do my own thing was always drifting in the wind, or maybe that should be barking and meowing in the wind.

The site took longer than planned, but here we are, close to buying a domain and deploying.

A new adventure awaits.

Oliver Clay, Who's Your Mate? Pet News® editor and developer, 25/3/2025 - edited and updated 18/10/2025.