changing a dogs name

[Guest Anonymous]

i am getting a dog from a friend that is 1.5 yrs old. would anybody recommend me changing her name?
would it confuse her?

[Aroura]

That depends on how well she knows her name already, and how much you can't stand her old name! :lol:

When I got Montie he was 14 months old, his name was Frankie before hand, but he was from a breeder with 20 dogs and so he never properly learnt his name anyway. So when I got him I retrained him to respond to "Montie". I sat with him on my lap and every now and again I said "Montie" and gave him a treat, once he started looking at me when I said "Montie" I knew he was learning his name. He now responds better to his name than any other dog I know! Cassie on the other hand was 4 when I got her, been a show dog and had a lot of attention payed to her, she new her name very well so I didn't bother changing it.

[courtnek]

any dog can be trained to respond to a new name.....but it makes training harder. It helps if the new name you choose sounds similar the given name. Frankie and Montie are close enough to retrain the dog to his new
name...

it is also well known that a name that ends in the "ee" sound is more easily trained to a new name.

they respond to tone...if the tone is the same, they can get it.

[Malamum]

We just adopted an 8 month old girl whoose name was Connie - didn't like that so we changed it to Kira. It's been a month and she responds to it very well. Our boy's name ends in a ee sound so I wanted a different sounding name for her.

I also agree with K, if the dog has a not so pleasant life before coming to you then a fresh name for a fresh start is a good thing.

[Guest Anonymous]

We got a 5 year old terrier from the RSPCA years ago - we changed his name from day one and he seemed to know his new name within the week.

[Guest Anonymous]

I foster puppies for a service dog organization, and during our orientation they told us that occasionally dogs have their names changed during training due to sponsers that want a particular name. They said that the dogs have never had a problem, they catch on quickly, it's usually the humans that have a hard time getting used to the new name!