Changing a dog's name

If you are changing the name of an adult dog you are rehoming, is it easier to teach the dog its new name if it has similar vowel sounds as the old one, or does it not make much of a difference?

The only time I changed a dogs name I chose one that started with the same letter sound. Then used the two names in a double-barrelled fashion, the new name coming first.
ie we changed a dogs name from Syrus to Sadie and for a short time called her Sadie Syrus, she soon learned her new name.

When I rescued my Joey years ago, I kept his name, as he was 9 and I didn't think it fair to teach an old dog new tricks

I got Bambi when she was six months and she was called "Dora" by her previous owner. I couldn't go along with that one so called her Bambi and within two days, she knew her name. We even tested her after about a week and called "Dora" and she didn't even look up.

When we got Bailey, he was five months and we kept his original name, as we were going to call a boy dog Bailey anyway then along came Bailey (already named Bailey) so we felt it was an omen that we had him

To be honest, I think that dogs adapt sooooo quickly, that whatever you called the new dog, it would learn his/her name very quickly. Perhaps one that sounded similar to the original name may cause a little less confusion from the off though

Well two of our three rescues we didn't know their original names, but they picked up their new ones quick enough.

Stumpy effectively picked hers herself. We'd been trying out a few names and partly as a joke we started calling her Stumpy (she hasn't got a full tail)....well, whether it was because we were laughing and joking, but she got all happy and wagged her tail for the first time since she came to us...so Stumpy it was.

A dog doesn`t `know` its name. It just knows what words it`s been trained to or learned to recognise. Depending on the dog`s history, Fido might mean - look at owner there`s a bicuit coming, or take cover or blah blah blah. I wouldn`t worry about changing or keeping the name as dogs tend to learn from body language as well as vocal commands - go on, try putting your dog in a Down with your back to him! - and your mannerisms will be totally different so he`ll have to relearn your commands anyway.