That name though is not in style. I understand that they are trying to pun on k8s and k9, but the 8 in k8s is there for a reason. k9s is confusingly pretending to hide 9 characters in the middle when it is not.
Yes, but I strongly suspect that the mascot is secondary to the name. They probably started with k8s, saw an opportunity to pun, added 1 to get k9, and that informed the logo.