I’ve seen a lot of references recently to people saying that their pet came with a name already. I know that most shelters will give “placeholder names” to puppies and kittens so they have a way to refer to them before they’re adopted out. It never occurred to me that some people might keep that name, though. Now I don’t know if the people who have mentioned their pre-named pets are getting them from shelters or not, but this question is about shelter pets.
My girl kitty, Pixie, was from a cat rescue which had named all the kittens in her litter after different flavors of ice cream. Her name was “Mocha Chip” when we got her. We renamed her “Pixie” as soon as she got home.
If you got a pet from a shelter/rescue, would you keep the name the pet was given there or would you think up a new name and rename the pet?
All of my cats are rescues. The two who were adult when I got them I kept the name they already had, since they both come when called. The other 5 I picked their names.
I have kept the name the previous owner gave the pet in most cases. A recent exception was the 10 month old dog I re-homed two years ago, he was named Buddy and my neighbour’s dog is also named Buddy, so to prevent confusion he got a new name.
It depends. Some dogs and cats I’ve taken in had names that fit their personalities, so I kept the name. Other animals had names that were too similar to a resident pet’s name; to avoid confusion, I changed the name.
I volunteer with a dog rescue group. If I pull a dog from an animal control facility and it was impounded as a stray with no known history, and the facility has not yet named the dog, and I’ll be fostering the dog, I name it. If someone else will be fostering, I ask them to pick a name.
I prefer to use nouns or adjectives for pets’ names and not use “people names”. That said, all the feral cats I’m feeding (except one) have people names, and my two resident dogs and one foster dog have people names. I gave the momma dog I recently fostered and four of her seven puppies people names.
We took in a 7-year old cat named Shadow from a bad household. I used to say “bonita” (pretty) to her, practicing my spanish. Later we just started calling her Bonita, and referred to the former name as her “slave name”.
She was a wonderful kitty after we got her away from those creeps.
First kitty was 6 years old and had been named Roo by the people who gave her up (her mother had apparently been Kanga); the Human Society had renamed her Bancroft for their own reference purposes. I didn’t like either of those, and called her Austen when I brought her home. And so she has been for the last 11 years. When I first adopted her, she would respond when I called her “Roo,” but that’s long forgotten now.
Second kitty was picked up as a stray, but had obviously belonged to someone before that and must have had a name. The local SPCA shelter named her Nyala. I change it to Lucia.
We went with the same name. When we adopted Daisy from the shelter 14 years ago (she’s going strong) we had to keep her name the same since my IRL last name is May. I couldn’t rename Daisy May.
If they are surrendered to the shelter, rather than found as a stray, then there should be a record of the name the original owner called them. If I liked the name, I would keep it, but if I didn’t, I would have no qualms about changing it.
Not all shelters name the dogs, I see a few on petfinder that are just file numbers. I would think a name would make them more appealing to potential adopters and make them more easily identifiable to shelter staff and adopters.
I had one dog that I adopted as an adult dog. I never liked his name, but I had known him by it for about six months before I took him in permanently and I couldn’t wrap my brain around calling him anything else. Plus everyone already knew him by that name and it would have been too hard to explain that I had changed it.
For the record. One adopted cat from a friend, kept his name, though she had changed it from his original name. Second cat from a shelter, was a surrender so had a name I didn’t like so I changed it. Other cat was named Grace by the rescue, but turned out to be a boy, so he became Darcy.
Adopted a goofy half grown lab mix named Zeus, which he so didn’t fit, so changed it to Baker, and one foster puppy recently that I got to name, though I have no idea if his adoptive owner kept the name I gave him.
I grew up with a stuck up cat that acted like it was god’s gift to the world. She never came when called . I was 25 before I realized cats could be fun
But there are some cats that do know their name. Most know it but can’t be bothered with you
But Mocha Chip is a great name!! (assuming her fur is a good color match)
If the name fits, keep it.
Me, I changed my kitten’s name. “Lucy” just didnt fit. (it reminded me of Charlie Brown’s big, bossy sister). So my little, soft, lap-sitter with the high-pitched mew became Picolo.)
IMO the age of the pet and its former environment matter. For instance, I have one dog who was a couple years old when I got him from the shelter and had been surrendered when his human entered a nursing home. He knew his name and responded to it, so I kept his name. Another dog I had came from a puppy mill at age 3 with a stop at an interim adoptive home where she was given a completely inappropriate name and then dumped back at the shelter. She got a new name that fit her well and she learned to respond to it.
All the cats I’ve had knew their names, but all of them interpreted their names as “Your Royal Highness” and responded at their leisure.
Our shelter dog was a rescue dog, and we didn’t like her name. But she only had that name for maybe a week.
I voted it depends, including if the name was OK or not. For an older dog, the default would be to keep it, but if I felt I needed to change it, I wouldn’t be too concerned. Just use the old name for a while when calling her, but use the new one when saying hi, or playing with her, and she’d figure it out after a little bit.
I think the age would matter. I renamed my rescue kitty from Mocha Chip to Pixie, but honestly, she was 8 weeks old–how often had she even heard her “name” spoken anyway?
As to cats knowing their names, they absolutely do. All of the cats I’ve ever had have had very definite reactions to their names. Most of my cats come when they’re called by name, but even if they don’t come, they’ll lift their head and look. And they don’t do so when we’re calling one of the other cats (we have 3).
