Is my pet a boy or a girl?

Over to the right you can see Joanna (or at least on of her relatives). Joanna is my level 70 raptor on my hunter. By happy coincidence, I named her before I confirmed that she was a she. Imagine the years of psychotherapy I'd have to fund if I'd named a male raptor Joanna. Or I guess he could write a hit country song about his mis-nomenclature.

But how do you tell the gender of your pet. Being composed of polygons drawn on a computer screen, it's difficult to "turn them over and look" like you would with a real world pet. And to some degree, it probably doesn't matter. If you name a pet "Joanna" or "Sue," it becomes by default she. And if you name a pet "Fred" or "Henry," it becomes male. But there is a way to tell. Or at least I like to think there is.

In the Wetlands, which is incidentally where Joanna grew up, there are a couple of wrecked ships full of ghostly sailors and marines. They are for a mid-20s quest from Menethil Harbor for Alliance, but I think they're probably aggro mobs for the Horde as well. One of their abilities is to curse their target turning them into an undead and some other nasty stuff.

The fun thing, is that pets subject to the curse turn not into undead raptors, cats and carrrion birds, but into undead humans. And when Joanna was subject to the curse, she was indeed a she. I've never confirmed that pets do indeed turn into different sexes, but everytime Joanna was cursed she properly turned into a female undead.

I guess it's not really important, but if you are dying to know the gender of your pet (and whether or not you're responsible for therapy bills) take it over to Wetlands and get it cursed. Then you'll know for certain.

And now, for extra cool points (which I've never given) tell my what movie reference caused me to name Joanna.