To think changing a rescue dog's name is fine?

[punchegg]

DH is saying absolutely no, we keep the name. I personally don't see it as an issue if we make it somewhat similar sounding to a dog's ear. I'm just not a huge fan (dog is named Pluto) thought we could go for something with an o sound at the end still, with 2 syllables, plenty of names.

DH thinks it's mean when it's already a new everything for a dog and the least we can do is keep his name.

What do you think?

Dogs have no concept of 'name' as part of their identity/link to past.

It's just a noise you make when you want their attention, and has no more meaning to them than the sound of you rustling a treat packet, which also gets their attention.

Changing it doesn't bother them.

We renamed and he had his new name learned within the week.

Of course you can change the dog’s name if you want to. Our dog has his name but we constantly call him other things. They are pet names like nick names, he responds to them all. It’s tone, not words.

Rescue Centres have usually renamed them. They don't know it's their name. It's a sound with pleasant associations, ie attention, food, play, walks, etc. It's fine to rename, they adapt very quickly. Also some might associate their old name with bad things, making recall difficult.

My cat is a rescue so they didn't know her name, she was given the name Lulu but two of the neighbours dogs are called Lola so she became Freya.

We changed our first rescue's name but kept the second's. Problem is the second rescue thinks he's also called the first's name so responds to both 😂
Dogs don't understand names, they respond to a noise that they recognise.

We had a rescue dog from Cyprus, lived with her name for a while, never liked it, one evening we started calling her a new name, within 30 minutes she was responding! It's no big deal, it's all about the tone used. He's overthinking it.

It depends if this has been the dog's name for three years and he knows his name. We got a cat from the RSPCA and they'd given her a name as she was a stray. We got used to the idea of the name, but when we got her she didn't know her name. We could've renamed her as anything at that point.

I changed the name of my rescue dogs but kept it similar to their original name. The rescue never changed their names in case new owners wanted to do so again, and have no concerns about new owners changing names.

It makes little difference to the dog. Dogs are very much "you can call me anything just don't call me late for dinner".

Personally I think it’s fine. I renamed my 5 year old rescue and within days he was responding to his new name. I just kept saying it in a gentle and encouraging voice along with treats. I said both names with more emphasis on the new name until he would look and respond to the new name. After a couple of weeks he no longer paid attention to his old name

Your bloke is getting a bit confused - this is not a child you are adopting! The dog is not human, so the name is not part of the dog's identity. It's just a sound that he has learned means a human wants him to come to / get his attention with. This is no different from training him to do anything with a slightly new word command.

Really good point - hadn't thought of that, but it sounds like a sensible way to ensure a fresh start.

I don't see the problem, we've done it for two cats who came with awful names. We found something similar but nicer. The only one we couldn't do it for was a ginger tom called Garfield. It got shortened to "Garth" or "Garfy" but he never responded to anything further afield than those from his original name. It's always the orange ones, lol.

Aren't they usually just given arbitrary names in the shelter? If the dog has been called Pluto for three years, I suppose that is different. My dog recognized multiple nicknames and variations on his name. Unless it's a really dopey dog or the poor thing is in a state, a new name should not be a problem.

I didn't change my first dog's name as he was 8 years old when I adopted him and had always had the same owner who had had to go into a care home and couldn't take him with him.

My second dog was about 9 months old and I changed the first letter of his name which he was fine with all his life, I think they listen for the vowel sound because they respond to similar sounding words sometimes.

My third dog who I still have was about 14 months old and although I could have changed it as he was given the name by the shelter after he was taken from the streets by the dog warden after being found wandering lost and frightened it somehow suits him so I didn't change it.

My fourth dog who I still have was a puppy of about 9 or 10 weeks when I adopted her from a local shelter is called Dusty as in 'Dusty Bin'. The shelter gave her this name as she was abandoned as a tiny puppy in a bin when she should have still been with her mother and litter mates but fortunately was found quickly and taken to the shelter, strangely it seems to suit her too!

😂 bloody hell talk about anthropomorphising. It’s a dog! Not an adopted child from an abusive home. Some people need to get a grip.

YABU to do it if tge dog is nearly 3! Maybe at 3 months!

We changed our rescue dog’s name. There were no issues and it didn’t take long for him to respond to it. Wasn’t a sound alike either. He was one.

Especially if the dog is named for example fury or Tyson, we're not into boxing/ fighting so we'd never have stuck with the given name as it's not us.

We changed our rescue dogs name but he was only 7 month old. The rescuers had named him Willy and I just couldn't face being that person calling 'Willy come' out in public!! We sat and thought of similar sounding names or similar ending: Billy, Bailey, Dusty, Rusty etc and settled with one of those. With Pluto you could go down the route of Lupo, Bruno etc if you wanted to keep it similar.

Maybe depends on the circumstances. As a PP said, if an older dog has come from a loving home where their owner has died or become unable to care for them, it might be kinder to keep using the name they already have.

Our rescue was only 4 months when we got him. At the time, the rescues centre had a lot of very young dogs that had come over from Ireland. There wasn’t much information about the circumstances they’d been found in (puppy farm possibly) and they arrived at the shelter without names so the centre had given them (somewhat crap) names. Ours was called Marsala 🤔 We renamed him. But we have also called him several variations of his name/it has sometimes morphed into similar sounding names and he answers to all of them.

Our very traumatised Romanian boy came to us at nearly 3 years of age. He had a daft name so we changed it (to something that sounded very different). Took him no time at all to get used to it.

Our rescue was just shy of 3 and we changed his name. It was absolutely fine.

Only if you change it to Colin From Accounts 😉