Naming trees would definitely work. Case in point my buddy owns a big cattle farm. When his kids got older they named some of the calf's. He warned them thats not a good idea. Kids are kids and they ignored him.

Now he's not a beef or dairy farmer. He's a breeder, he has a stable of high quality cows and inseminates them for the calf's.

So his kids name a bunch of the calf's, bottle raise them w/ mom cows help then they goto auction. They were devastated that "Daisy" and "Jemirqui" where gone over a weekend.

They never named another cow after that, they learned it was a business the hard way. But humanizing them did change the dynamic. Like with naming tree's...