Well I took mrmacfixit's advice and figured out how to change the icon that appears in the dock. Basically, I found the icon i wanted to replace my original with and copied it. I then opened my applications folder and right clicked (well control clicked) on the application i wanted to change the icon for. I selected "Get info" from the popup menu. In the upper left hand corner of the "get info" screen the programs icon appears. I then clicked on the icon and selected paste, which promptly replaced the icon for the program. This changed the programs icon. I then removed the original program from the dock and put the program with the new icon back into the dock and it worked like a charm.
hope this helps someone else.