What's In a Name?

Toby wasn't always called "Toby". During his training at IDAPI, he was called "Elliott", before that he had at least one other name. When I picked him out online, "Elliott" wasn't my favorite name but I wasn't sure if I should change it because that is what they used in his two-month training course. Then I remembered the dog in the yard behind us...Elliott. How confusing would that be for the dogs? At that point I decided to change his name, but to what? I thought about it a while, looked up some ideas online, and finally sat down with my family to ask for their help. Right away my sister, Kayleen, suggested "Toby", but that was the name of my English teacher at the time, so I thought it might be weird. Everyone started throwing out names, my mom's personal favorite was "Diego". I had a few I liked, "Toby" was one of them (thanks to my sister's persistent persuasion), and figured I would name him when I got to know him a little.
For the next couple weeks, while I waited for a call from the shelter, Kayleen often mentioned reasons to name him "Toby", she referred to him as "Toby" and insisted that she would call him "Toby" no matter what I named him. So "Toby" it was.
Finally the day arrived, I adopted him and decided to try out his new name. I had heard that when you change a dog's name, it helps to add the old name on to the end for a while, so we called him "Toby Elliott" a few times on the drive home. Maybe one hour later he was responding to "Toby" better than he did to "Elliott", I guess it was meant to be.