Tess ranks #857 with 138 female registrations. The name is short for Theresa or Tessa (with Greek-Latin roots possibly meaning "to harvest" or "summer") and on a pet license usually marks owners drawn to the literary-vintage register without committing to the longer formal version.
The literary cluster
Tess carries one specific literary anchor that older readers recognize: Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy's 1891 tragic novel whose protagonist made the name shorthand for quiet rural feminine strength. Households drawn to that literary register pair Tess with sibling-pet choices from similar Victorian-novel sources. The shorter form also pulls from Tessa, with Tess functioning as the household-intimacy version made formal on the paperwork.
Sound and breed lean
One syllable, soft T opening into a short E and a sibilant tail. The name calls cleanly outdoors and the sharp consonants help recall in chaotic settings. Tess lands with notable concentration on working-line breeds: border collies, Australian shepherds, Welsh sheepdogs, and rural-coded mixed breeds whose owners wanted a name with farm-and-field gravity. See border collie names for the cluster.
The counter-reading
The honest read is that Tess is human-coded. The human Tess page shows steady SSA presence, and the dog will share call-name space with substantial human numbers. Households who want the working-dog register with stronger pet-only identity might consider Scout or Willow.