Use This ‘Official’ Form To Change Your Pet’s Name

If you’re isolating yourself at home with your kids—along with one or more animals—you may have decided that now’s as good a time as any to change your pet’s name. Maybe you never really loved the name to begin with, and now that you’re all in close quarters all day, everyday, for-what-seems-like-ever, you simply can’t stand to hear “Katy Purry” uttered one more time. It was funny at the time; it’s not funny anymore.

Or maybe your kids have simply run out of things to do, and changing the dog’s name will burn up a solid 15 minutes (that’s 5.5 hours in pandemic time). Whatever the case, if you want to change your pet’s name, you can do so. But please use this official form, created by a dad whose child wanted to change the name of their kitten—but only in the most by-the-book way possible:

Our daughter wants to rename our kitten, and she asked me to “download the form for it.” (She had been reading about people name-changes.) So I made the official pet name-change form, available to the general public: https://t.co/wVrMeTS9uw

— Neven Mrgan (@mrgan) April 8, 2020

You can download and print the PET-1016 form (the form notes that this is for use with domesticated pets only; to name or rename a wild animal, you’ll need form WILD-906). Or you can fill the form out digitally. It doesn’t really matter, as this is not a real thing one needs to do.

Once you have provided all the necessary information, including how your pet greets you and its cuteness rating, the pet owner will sign, as well as the pet (if they are willing).

The official pet-renaming website notes that pet owners are allowed unlimited name changes and there is no fee for the service—but it does kindly ask that you inform your pet of this change.