Team Names

SUMMARY: The fun thing about doing 3-dog Team Tournaments

The three-dog Dog Agility Masters (DAM) Team tournament isn't offered all that often, because it requires five classes--none of which are qualifying for normal titles--which is pretty much an entire day of competition. However, it is a qualifier for one of the three main Nationals events, and now your Championship title requires that you earn at least one of those DAM[n] qualifiers. So it's being offered much more often than it used to be.

One fun thing about it is that, unlike any other event, you get to create a team name that reflects yourselves, your dogs, your attitudes, your cleverness, or anything else that you want it to reflect. That's not to say that it's not perfectly OK to name your team after your dogs--e.g., "Fluffy, Fido, and Fang" if those are your dogs. Some people do that. But the rest of us spend weeks agonizing over just the right clever name, which NO one will ever pay any attention to except us, and maybe the trial secretary as she types it into the database.

For our Labor Day trial, Boost is on a team with her sister Bette; our third is Maiya, whose name is Klingon for "friend". So we are Sisters on a Star Trek.

Tika and Brenn are teaming once again; last DAM trial and for Labor Day with different dogs, but both border collies. In other words, our team has two Border Collies plus Tika, my famous Aussie[probably]. And we all have our issues with, say, dogs flying off contacts or grabbing our feet or such. So we are Borderin' on K-Aus. (Say it out loud.) (Thanks, Gwen, for the name.)

I just got email from a friend whose teeny tiny dog is on a team with another teeny tiny dog (toy dogs would be the correct terminology) and a very large Border Collie named Fleet. They debated Fleet plays with toys, but finally agreed on Gulliver's Travels (because they have two Lilliputians and a Brobdingnagian).

More Old Team Names

All my old team names that I've been able to glean so far. Seem to be missing some trial info for at least 3 trials that I know we did Team in (and I save EVERYthing, so I wonder where it all is?).

• Sept '01: Dream Weavers (Jake, Haley, and Mysti: We wore shirts with photos of our dogs doing the weave poles)
• Sept '01(?): BT Cruisers (because we're from the Bay Team; after the newly introduced PT Cruiser; Boomer, Spike, and Remington)
• April '03: Sound and Furry (Tika, who runs quietly, and Tally Ho! and Squeeze, aussies who bark while running)
• Sept '04: AT&T (Annie, Tika, and Trane)
• April '05: No Ex-Qs ("No Excuse" and "Qs" for qualifying scores) (Tika, Spike and Magoo)
• Sept '05: Got Legs? (three very tall, long-legged dogs: Tika, Haley, and Jasmine)
• Nationals '05: G'Day Bayou (Tika the Australian Shepherd, JJ the Australian Cattle Dog, and CateE the Catahoula Leopard Dog)
• April '06: Aussie Skeetering on the Border (Tika the Aussie, Skeeter, and Brenn the Border Collie)
• May '06: Two Stars and A Little Sparkle (Tika, Brenn, Sparkle--although Sparkle was replaced before the event so I don't know what name we actually ended up using. Something like "Last Minute Substitution")
• Sept '06: Three's a Charm (Tika, Brenn, Skeeter; this was Tika & Brenn's third try at a Q after failing the previous 2 times, and we wanted a new name; so, there are there of us and three times is a charm. It seems to have worked.)
• Nov '06: Three's a Charm (Tika, Brenn, Skeeter)
• Nov '06: Bee Gees (Boost, Gryphon, and Gryffindor)
• April '07: Two Bigs and a Bit (Tika, Brenn the border collie, and Roxy the Papillon)