Would it be weird (or workable) to change our dog's name?

[BorntoDillyDally]

We have a 5 year old rescue dog. He has been with us now for 3 years.

I have never liked his name for a few reasons. The first is because it is the name given to him by his first owners, the ones who abused him and have caused him to be the very anxious and reactive little doggie that he is. The other reason is because it is horribly common and I just hate saying his name out in public, ridiculous, I know.

I have always given all of my pets human names - cats, dogs, guinea pigs and even our fish have all had human names.

Not sure why we didn't change his name as soon as we got him but I supposed I thought he wouldn't get used to it at 2 years old but is it too late now at 5 years old?

It's not a major thing I know but I wonder if anyone has changed their dog's name to a more suitable one and they got used to it?

Also, funnily enough, our dog's nickname is Bear! (He looks nothing like a bear, so I'm not sure how that got started...!) It doesn't seem to confuse him, effectively having two names. I don't think dogs attach the same significance to names that we do. It's just a sound that means you're talking to/about them.

He's adorable and Bear suits him. Just tell yourself the rescue renamed him Bear, not his awful first owners.

He's gorgeous and I agree with PP who say that Bear suits him.

My friend tried to change her dog's name for the same reasons as you. It never stuck, everyone knew him as the previous name and, after a few weeks of confusion he reverted to his original name.

If you're sure you want to change could you call him Teddy Bear and shorten it to Teddy in time?

Rupert Bear if you want to keep the bear association?

But I'd call him Jeff.

I think you'll have more problems with humans who know his name learning a new one than you will with the dog learning a new one.

I'm another one who calls my dog but lots of names. It's the ton of voice you use when talking to them that they recognise, I think. Apart from the 'recall', if you use the name for that command. That might take a bit longer but I reckon you could still get there.

He doesn't look like a Bear to me. I actually like the name Bear but I can understand why it has negative connotations for you. I think he'd suit a human name like Nigel better.

To everyone suggesting Nigel, can I kindly suggest any other alternative human male name given the current political climate. People will think it’s in homage to the twit representing Clacton and he’ll get teased in the Dog Park.

Gary

I agree - my dogs name is Noodle and every time I say “Hey Google” to ask the Google Home device to do something, the dogs ears perk up and look at me.

Blair?

Each of our dogs has 5 or 6 names and they respond to them all so I say go for it

Start calling him Teddy Bear and gradually change it to Ted.

Make it double barrelled for a while then drop the Bear bit. I met one called yogi which i thought was great, yogi bear as an interim.

Yes you can change it with repetition.
abused rescue dogs are renamed as their original name usually comes with psychological damage . For example If their name was usually shouted then followed by a kick or punishment , which is common , they often feel the name is precursor to abuse . It’s not too late .

Our dogs’ names have always evolved.

To me he could be a Barnaby or Barnabas.

He is so cute ❤️ Sir Archibald 😘 we have had 2 rescue dogs, whose names we changed. It works, just persevere. Good luck 🤞

I call my dog a few names all of which he answers to lol! As previous posters have said just call him a nickname he’ll soon get used to it. He’s adorable btw !

What about Barney? He would easily learn that I think.

Many rescue dogs have their names changed without problems. There's nothing special to them about a name, it's a cue like any other cue. Once you have a behaviour on cue you can change the cue by preceding it with whatever you want the new cue to be. The order matters, because when the dog hears the new cue he expects the old one to follow, he knows he'll be rewarded for the behaviour so he thinks he might just as well get on with it and get his reward sooner. Just call him New name old name for a bit, then call him New name (pause) old name for a bit and watch what happens. You'll be able to see when he responds to New name and then you can just drop Old name. I doubt it will take long particularly if you're all consistent about it. I've seen dogs who know 'sit' learn to sit to the name of someone's favourite football team in less than 5 minutes.

He's gorgeous BTW.

Yes, you can change it. I would pick something similar. We adopted a dog whose original name was Pasta (!). We called her Sacha - she accepted it pretty well straight away. Current dog responds to her daft nickname which rhymes with her name.

That's why I suggested Blair. Something like Bob sounds too different.
Dare would be closer but it's not a human name.
Bear is a terrible name.
Might Ben work?

you can change dogs names easy enough, they just know it as a noise that means you want them really rather than their actual identity.

I think people might struggle a bit after 3 years of having him though.

re human names - I fostered a dog with a very middle aged bloke name and while it was amusing.., it got less amusing when I had to call him in public and middle aged blokes did in fact turn round 😐

Barry.

My rescue dog is called the most common dogs name I would have loved to change it to Timmy being a fan of the famous five
she won’t answer to it though

I’m pretty sure if you say a new name along with giving treats or strokes ,then bear will get used to his new name.

our dog is called Eddie.

He also answers to Bedward, Bedwin, Bing-Bong, BabyBoy and lamb legs…. None of which sound like Eddie 🤣

In my defence, I was thinking of Monty Don's Nigel but, you're right, it won't work now.