What’s In a Dog Name?
Okay, so maybe naming your Boxer, Jimi, during your Hendrix phase wasn’t the best idea, and letting the kids name your bloodhound, Fanny, was even worse. If you don’t like your dogs’ names, why can’t you just change them to something different? It is not like Jimi and Fanny understand English; it is not like they would notice, right?
While the argument that Jimi and Fanny do not speak English does have some merit, that doesn’t make it airtight. Your dogs would notice if you changed their names. In fact, there are a whole slew of reasons not to go about renaming your dogs whenever the whim strikes you. These reasons can be sorted into two categories: the ways it would affect them, and the ways that it would affect you. You may be surprised how much of a difference renaming your pooch can make.
The Effects On Them
The biggest problem with changing your dogs’ names is that it is confusing to them. Learning a new name is just like learning a new trick. It takes time, effort, and training – for both of you. The likelihood that this process of adapting Jimi to his new name will be stressful for the two of you is very high indeed. No one, neither human nor canine likes to encounter stress, so why add more to the relationship between man and beast?
This can be especially true for dogs that have a harder time learning tricks due to breeding, attention span, or other factors. Boxer can be hyperactive, and a bit slow on the uptake. It could take Jimi months to learn his new name and incorporate it into his human vocabulary. So, you will have effectively spent months fixing something that is not broken. Renaming Jimi or Fanny would be possible with training, to be sure, but you would want to have a very good, important reason for doing so.
Also, once you’ve successfully changed your pup’s name once, what’s to stop you from changing your mind again, and renaming him again – which would cause even more stress for both of you.
The Effects On You
The biggest effect that it will have on you is that it will damage your relationship to Fanny to rename him. Renaming your dog takes away the identity that you associate with his name. To you, Fanny is not just some bloodhound whose name happens to be Fanny, but rather, she is your bloodhound Fanny. Rename her Droopy or whatever you feel like, but understand that he will become some bloodhound named Droopy for a while before he becomes your bloodhound Droopy.
Many people who pick out dogs from shelters want to rename them because they “don’t like the name that their dog comes with.” What they don’t understand is that the very first time they learn their dog’s name, they create a sort of identity for their pet in their mind. This paradigm creation of your dog is forced to shift and change as new information about their pet becomes available. Changing your pet’s name is not just another shift in this paradigm. It is a complete alteration of your identification of this paradigm.
If you haven’t noticed by now, the effects that changing Fanny and Jimi’s names have on them also affect you, and vise versa. The names, “Fanny” and “Jimi” are the fulcrum point of the special relationship that you share with them. Don’t fix what isn’t broken. Just like you wouldn’t rename your children on a whim, you shouldn’t rename your dogs. Fanny and Jimi are the perfect names for Fanny and Jimi, because it is who they have always been and will forever be.