Use the name you want immediately and no it wont confuse her, dogs dont really care much at first, she will start associating you with her name and get it as long as you use it and associate it with a positive action. Kudos for adopting!!

Will do!
She is such a wonderful girl. I wasn't sure if I was ready for another dog since my lab/rottie mix Ozzy passed away last summer (wasn't sure if my two cats would be receptive also)so I figured fostering would be the way to go. I hooked up with New England Lab Rescue a month ago and got her right away...one cat was fine with her from day 2, the other has come around slowly. I fell in love with her instantly!

My first dog was 6 months when I adopted him and his name was Bailey. I changed it to Ziggy with no problems. Second dog had the name Parker for three years which I changed to Wally. Again no problem. Say it often and they get it quickly.

Yes..........by all means call her what feels good to you, and she'll be fine with a name change, especially since she's only had the name Chloe for a short while. I adopted my little Iggy mix from a shelter and they labeled him 'Scrappy'. It just totally doesn't fit a fine-boned, delicate little dog and since he and his brother's were surrenders, it may or may not have been his original name because their puters were down when I asked for more history on him.

He is now named after a beloved dog my parents used to own before I was born.........and he never suffered any trauma from not continuing to call him Scrappy.

We rescued our mini schnauzer 3 years ago when she was 2 yr. old and her name at the time was 'Lyka'. She was in pitiful condition and had been abused and neglected, so we wanted her to leave everything about her old life behind, including her name. We named her Sasha and she didn't even seem to notice her name had changed. Like Mazer said, it needs to be a positive thing to the dog. Maybe lots of petting and loving while saying her name, etc. Good luck and bless you for adopting Molly!

I've changed cats and dogs names over the years ...

13 years ago I adopted two 6 mos old kittens who had been born in a field in Akron, so the rescue named one Akky and the other Ronni ... Akky sounds like a hairball, so she became Cassie. Ronni stayed Ronni.

My dog Lily was originally named Jolly by the rescue, since she was such a jolly dog ... I named her Lily since I'm a daylily addict! :>)

Funny, but some of my friends have adopted children and changed their names, but I have always stuck with the names any of my adopted pets came with.

I've done both - The rescue named Bo, and I kept it the same. I usually call him Bo, Bo Jangles, Bo Diddley or Diddley.

Layla used to be Regan at the rescue. She now answers to Layla, Layler, Laylerbut, Princess, Missus, Ms. Barkypants, or Diva.

They also come running at "Hey Guys" :)

My dogs don't seem to care what I call them, since it usually means attention, treats or something else fun.

I'm sure Molly will be happy with whatever you choose. Thanks for adopting!

I always change the pets' names when I adopt them.

I adopted Duras when he was 10 years old, changing his name from Taz. I just don't associate the name Taz with a 90# rottie (all the Tazzes I know are ferrets), so he got changed to fit our Rottie theme- Klingons. He took about 1 week to learn his new name.

I got Snook when she was about 10 years old also. I don't know what her original name was, the foster called her Foxy (she's a pomeranian), and at first we called her Leia Marie but we have a friend named Leah and the first time we accidently called Leah Leia it was over. She went through a period of no name, then I called her IttyBitty which is what a character on Pushing Daisies was nicknamed, but instead of called her Olive (the character's first name) we decided on Snook (her last name). She doesn't seem to care what she is called.

Sergei went through the most name changes. He's a husky I adopted from a client and his name was Alexander. My first husky was Aleksander and I just couldn't call him the same name. Also Leah has a dog named Alex who comes over quite a bit and it would have been confusing to have 2 Alexs in the house (almost as bad as a Leia and a Leah). My huskies are usually named after Russian czars, so my Aleksander was named after Aleksander the Great. There was another Aleksander who was called The Liberator and for a while I went with that. But Liberator lived up to his name and kept escaping from our kitchen gate and getting into trouble. One night when we were watching hockey, we heard a bunch of noise in the kitchen and it was the dog basically playing hockey with his empty food bowl. At that moment my favorite player, Sergei Samsomov scored a goal for the Hurricanes, and I decided to name the dog after him. I *almost* changed the dog's name when Samsomov got traded to another team.

I have one dog that I never named. She's a rottie that I got from a client who was going to euthanize her. Her name was Ebony but I didn't like the name. Unfortunately I had already used up most of the female Klingon names. So her cage card at work said None Yet in the name space until I thought of a real name. Well, we kept calling her that and it stuck. I just changed the spelling to Nunyette.

Mine also respond to "Hey Guys" ;)

Mine have always responded to " COOKY". If there is a treat at the end most dogs don't care what you call them.

When Kita chooses to ignore me......"hey dog" will bring her running......

@ Meghane; Nunyette - that's just too funny, and so cute.

I rename my dogs. I got Duffy when her was a year old. His name was Walker. I immediately started calling him Duffy Walker. By 4 or 5 days I dropped the Walker and used just Duffy. Was easy and worked.

I got Larry from the pound, he's now Bo.

Roxy, I liked her name and she's still Roxy amoung other names. Sister, Oh Little Girl Dog....

They don't care if you change their name. Congratulations for changing their life.

They all answer to come here dammit!

I don't have "dogs", I have Pembroke Welsh Corgis. We adopted our red and white when he was six months old. The original owners had named HIM cookie because she thought he was the color of some type of cookie dough she made. He has been Corky to us for 7-1/2 years. Our tri-color guy is Casey. Regarding Corky, the original older owners rapidly found out he was a more active dog than they could handle. We adopted Casey from the local shelter 5 years ago.