There aren’t too many ways to get allies in Minecraft. Once you have a dog who loves you and an ocelot who might, you’re starting to run low on pets. Thankfully, your pet wolf is one of the friendliest creatures in the entire game! That’s why your pet dog deserves a name in Minecraft. But, how do you give it a name in-game so you can remember it forever? Is there a way to do it without using console commands?
How to Name Your Dog in Minecraft
Once your pet dog is tamed, you can name your dog with a name tag. Name tags have a chance to spawn in Dungeon chests, Mineshaft chests, Woodland Mansion chests, from Master-level Librarian Villagers, and rarely from fishing. Your best chance to get a name tag is in Mineshaft chests, where your chance of getting a tag in the loot pool is a pretty stellar 43%. Once you have a name tag, put it in an anvil and forge a new name onto it for 1 experience point, then right-click on your dog to name it.
Name tags are somewhat hard to obtain, as they are only from loot. If you don’t want to go spelunking in Mineshafts, Fishing is a terrible 0.8% chance (unless you use Luck of the Sea) and you’ll need to farm a Librarian to even get a chance to get a name tag.
There is good news, though. You can name anything with this, other than players. It’ll keep the creature from despawning, too. This is actually quite useful if you want to go on a long journey from your farm and are worried about your favorite turtle or axolotl. Heck, you can even name enemies if you really want to!
There is no other way to rename your dog. You can change the tag on the wolf’s collar by using dye on it. It defaults to red.
If you’re worried about your pet dog taking damage, you can feed it with meat that is not fish. They heal for an amount equal to the hunger you’d get, making cooked food much more efficient for healing.
