Changing Your Dog’s Name: Will It Confuse Them or Help Them?

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count.

Thank you. Thumbtack presents Tile Trouble. Every single time I use my sink, I make eye contact with the uneven grout on my kitchen backsplash. The crooked corners eye me, and I'm haunted by more tiling questions than I thought possible. What kind of pro can fix a backsplash? Can I replace one cracked tile, or should I replace them all?

What—

what if I just used Thumbtack? I can hire top-rated pros, read reviews, and compare prices with a tap. All on the app. Thumbtack knows homes. Download the app today.

You know that thing where you get an amazing pair of shoes at a really great price and want to tell everyone about it? Yeah, so do we. Here at Designer Shoe Warehouse, we'll give you something to brag about, like the latest styles from brands you love, or the trends everyone's obsessing over, or shoes that make you feel like, well, you. So go ahead, show off a little. Find shoes that get you at prices that get your budget. Head to your DSW store or dsw.com today. DSW, let us surprise you. There's a fire inside you you can't ignore. Stand still? Not a chance. You're a lifelong learner who's come this far. Now we are here to help you keep going further. Capella University. What can't you do? Visit capella.edu to learn more.

Testing one two three.

Testing one two three.

Here we go.

Cool.

It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free dog training advice. And Max O'Neill.

If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, the podcast hopefully giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout. It's okay, it's friendly. My name is Jack Lawrence, not a dog trainer, but of course, as all. I'm Dan Iredale, and I'm always joined by Max O'Neill, Down Under Dog Trainer. Max, we're going to be talking name changes today. Not for us specifically, for dogs.

Yeah, it's one that's popped up a whole lot lately, and I thought it'd be a worthwhile topic because I constantly find myself explaining this and it seems to cause a bit of divided opinion amongst people. So one thing I see people a lot, they'll get a rescue and I'll ask people, oh, do they come with that name or did you give them a new name? And it's probably 50/50 down the middle. Some people give their dog a new name. Sometimes it's just personal preference. I don't really like the name Steve for my dog, so I gave it a new one.

Steve is a good name. I'm going to steal that for my next dog.

Next dog is Steve. And then other people do it because maybe the dog had a bit of a trauma background with that name. And that's a big reason why I advocate for sometimes changing a dog's name can be a good thing.

Yeah. Is it sort of a trigger, maybe, that the old name hearing?

Yeah, exactly. Like if that dog lives at its last home, it's like, Steve, Steve. Or even the person that said that name a lot, you know, Steve then led to something is You know, your dog doesn't particularly have this really strong sense of identity of, oh, I am Steve and Steve is I. Like, it's not deep like that.

It's probably again, like us humanising dogs. It's like, you know, because people say, well, you wouldn't change a kid's name, would you? No, that's slightly different than a dog because the dog doesn't know. A dog doesn't know that that's its name. It just knows that when it hears that, much like a command, that that person over there wants my attention.

That's all it is. It's a cue to look at you. It's a cue to open a dialogue. Hey, like, I'm going to Steve.

Yeah.

I'm going to now say some more stuff that I need you to do. Like, that's, that's all the name is. And I get some people go, no, we would never change his name. We couldn't do that to him. I'm like, he'd actually probably prefer it. So I'm saying that to you guys. Like, if you've just rescued a dog or you rescued one a while ago, or you're thinking about to, if they come with a name that you just go, oh, that's, that ain't going to suit me. Like, again, you do see some dogs with some pretty silly names, whether the shelter's named them that or their last owner was a bit of a dickhead and called them something like Forex. Shout out to Forex, who I trained not long ago. A dog called Forex. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're talking about the beer. I'm like, yeah, I mean, we're happy to be sponsored by Forex.

Yeah. And the owners change it, change it name to something just regular like Sally or whatever. Yeah, like you, you, you can, and often you should. Again, if that dog's had a pretty shitty background and that name's been screamed in it and you notice it when you say the dog's name, Steve, they're a bit like, oh yeah, like, what do you want? Then change it, give it a new one. And it's honestly, it's one of the best things you do is this really helps them just like leave all that behind. And it might take so many new uses of the name to get them over it that it's worth just leaving it out.

Because we were talking about this before we hit record, because I was saying it's really no different to, as you said, a command. As you said, like if you teach a command to a dog, say one of the most obviously common ones that people tend to struggle with is recall. So if you're using here and you've been just using here, here, here, here, here, here, and the dog's just basically ignored every time, you've diluted that command down and it means nothing to the dog.

Yeah.

Even if it comes to say, well, he does come back on the 4th go using here, it's like, well, yeah, okay, but we want him to come back instantly. So we need to start this again with a new command. And it means nothing to the dog, as you said. It just purely is, okay, this is something different. It's simply just a word.

It's just a word. It's just a noise. And Jack makes a good point that, like, going back to the recall, is you can either kill, poison, or dilute a command. And let's walk through what those are. So you can kill a command through something called learned irrelevance. If you're constantly like, come, come, come, come, come, come, with zero pattern, zero anything, your dog will hear that so much that learned irrelevance starts to happen. Your dog goes, that's a noise that happens a whole lot. I'm going to selectively just tune that the hell out. You can also poison a command. I see so many people who will say down and grab their dog's collar and just like force them to the floor. Like, you've poisoned that. I can see the moment you say the word down to your dog, they sit there and they brace and they shut up.

Waiting for that.

And they anticipate it. They go down like they don't think down means They've got to do anything. They simply mean go, oh, down is just a classically conditioned signal that you're about to just skull drag me down. So you can poison a command and attach a real negative association. Um, or like Jack said, you can dilute it, is you can just have really flimsy expectations that sure, you can train back in, but sometimes it's just worth to abandon it and go, nope, see you later, let's use something else. And I quite often have clients who are a bit disappointed by that. They go, oh, like, we really like the word here. And I'm like, well, shouldn't have overused it, you've blown it, we've got to pick something else.

See, and otherwise, other terms I've heard people use different terms for different commands, and I liked their term better than mine. And I'm like, that's cool.

I like that.

Now I need to train that.

Yeah, I'm going to train that word in, like, as in sort of like when, when she goes into middle, like guard or like barking at someone, I just want to say attack. And she's like, argh, argh, argh. So going back to the names, it doesn't mean anything. It's not an issue. You're not going to confuse the dog. You're not, it's not going to concern the dog. It's not going to worry and go, hold on a second. Yesterday my name was Steve and now they're calling me. Sally.

Yeah. And the argument, like, you know, for the easy just breaks down because people go, no, like, that's his sense of self, blah, blah, blah. When I have clients say that, I'm like, since I've been here, you've called your dog by 4 different nicknames. Yeah, you've already called your dog, taught your dog new names they respond to. Went from Steve, Stevie, Steve-O, you know, whatever. I was like, you're simply just dropping one and just adding new ones in. I'm like, and same, Nelson responds to nicknames that are not remotely similar to what his name sounds like, but he knows that is his name now. And If I just stopped calling him Nelson and just started calling him by one of his nicknames, which I'm not going to say on air, he would just go, that's just my name now. It's really not as big a deal as some people are making it. And it's probably got advantages to your dog if they had a trauma background. While we're on names, one more little thing just popped in my head speaking of it. And it's something I've, when I first heard, I was like, admittedly a couple of years ago, I was like, this is dumb, but it's starting to have a bit more merit. And I haven't started using it with clients yet because I want to use it with myself. So I don't do this because I'm I'm, you know, I guess good with my tone and stuff like that. But a lot of people think your dog should have— when I say a lot of people, some really, some good trainers think your dog should have a good name and a bad name. So Nelson is like, Nelson, like, come. But if I'm gonna like scold him for something like, oh my God, Nelson did this. If I, you know, like, Nelson, no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He can be a bit like, oh, like that. But I'm good because I can go like, you know, Nelson, no. Like, I don't have to make his name a negative. But for some people who don't have that self-control, they I've heard some trainers recommend giving your dog a good name and a bad name. So it might be Nelson and then his bad name might be, what's another name?

Nigel.

Nigel.

Yeah.

Nelson and Nigel. So if you are someone who goes like, Nigel, and tends to use your dog's name, you can use that other name. That way you're not killing it because again, you can start to poison a cue. And if it's sometimes it's Nelson, sometimes it's Nelson, it can, your dog's still hearing the word Nelson. So sometimes when you're going Nelson, he's going like, oh shit. And vice versa. Other times when you're like, you're in trouble, you go, no, And he's like, oh my God, that means my owner's happy.

So this is actually, this goes with Becky. Becky always, because I've heard this before as well, that, you know, owners— What's your bad name, Jon? Yeah, my wife yells at me. No, if Kira's getting in the way or something, Becky, you're like, go, Kira! I'm like, no, no, can we not use her name as in a negative form? Because I want her to associate that with good things, not negative stuff. But it's no different to your kids as well. My son's called Theodore. Um, we never call him Theodore. His name's Teddy. We call him Teddy. But if he's being an arsehole, I'll just say, Theodore, enough!

There's merit to it.

Yeah. There's, like I said, you've just got to remember then in the moment though, the bad name compared to the good name. Like, I mean, because you'd be so used to calling the dog. So I call her Kira all the time. So because I'm so used to calling her Kira, not that I use her name when she's frustrating me, I'd say no.

Yeah.

But like my wife then has to remember a new name.

Well, I mean, it kind of comes naturally because I've already started experimenting this. Like Nelson's Nelson. I went, oh, you fuckwit, when he's naughty.

Yeah.

He knows who fuckwit is now when I call him that. That's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a tricky one to call if you're in an outdoor situation though and someone walks past and Nelson's doing something naughty and you go, oi, fuckwit. You could find yourself in a few problems.

That's a good point.

I'm sorry, I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to my dog. Yeah, like, right, yeah, that's his name. Sure you were.

It's actually just really this concept, like, when he's naughty, I call it. They're like, okay, that's the biggest load of shit ever, isn't it?

But let me break down the science to you before you punch me in the face.

His name's actually just a Q and I actually don't want to do the thing called poisoning it, but it's like, all right, you, you're crazy.

All right. Okay. Well, there you go. If you're thinking about changing your dog's name or you wanted to change your dog's name, number one, from this episode, you can take away that it is totally fine. Your dog's not going to have a problem with it. And number two, try and work out a naughty name for your dog.

Let us know what you guys think of it. Like, like I said, I'm still on the fence a bit. Like, I technically, I think there's some level of merit, but I'm also going like, does my dog now need 2 names?

I don't know.

I'm keen to hear what you guys think. Some of you might already be doing this, or anyway, let us know. We'll do a post about it.

Jump in the Facebook group, search the Dog People Podcast, and we'll see you on the next one. The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill, edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

Hey, it's your ceiling vent. So, I'm dripping. Could be the rain, could be the upstairs bathroom.

Yikes.

You could hire the guy your neighbor recommended, but I'm pretty sure that's just his cousin. Do we know if he's licensed, or does he just own a ladder?

I don't know. Listen to your home.

Go with Thumbtack. Upload a photo or voice note, and we'll diagnose your project and match you with the right pro for the job.

Thumbtack.

We know homes. Hire the right pro today.

Hey man, you hungry?

Let's order delivery. Yeah, I was thinking Italian burgers. Oh.

Game night just got tense. Two bros on different sides of the fence. Burgers or pasta tonight? Why can't we have food without the fat?

With Wonder, you can combine 20 restaurants in one delivery, so no one has to settle. Use code MEALTIME for 50% off your first Wonder order. Terms apply. See wonder.com/newcustomer. There's a fire inside you you can't ignore. Stand still? Not a chance. You're a lifelong learner who's come this far. Now we are here to help you keep going further. Capella University. What can't you do? Visit capella.edu to learn more.