When you adopt a rescue dog from a shelter you are giving them a new start but there is one snag. They already have a name. Depending on the circumstances and personal preference it may be better to change the dogs name and it may make more sense to leave it the same. Here are the things that I consider.

First off if you know the dog was abused I would always change the dogs name. I would do this because if the dog relates their name to anything negative it can make them nervous when you use their name. It may also cause them to not want to come to you when using their name in a certain tone of voice.

If the name doesn’t seem to fit I would also change it. When you adopted your dog if his/her name was Thunder and the dogs personality was shy and reserved it wouldn’t fit the dogs personality so to me it would be better to change the name.

However, if your new dog knows his/her name well and responds positively to it I wouldn’t change it. This is because they don’t have a negative connotation with their name and they already know it so I prefer to not change the dogs name.