Names for a Dog Park

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Judy from McFarland, Wisconsin.

Hi, Judy. How are you doing?

I’m great. How are you?

Super duper.

Doing well.

Well, we were kind of working on a little project in our town here,

And we’re building a dog park, which is actually opening pretty soon.

And we did a Google search to look for dog park names,

And we didn’t find much out there.

So we came up with a few names of our own,

But we kind of thought we’d like to toss it out to your listeners and see if they had any ideas for us.

So is this like the first dog park in your community?

Yes, in our community.

We have quite a few in the, we live just outside of Madison,

So there are quite a few in the Madison area, but the first one in our town.

Well, now, Judy, are you a dog owner, first of all?

Oh, absolutely.

And what do you have?

I have a five-year-old Border Collie.

Oh, my gosh, those dogs are really smart.

They can do things like open refrigerators and combination locks and stuff, can’t they?

He does a lot of things.

He does a lot of things my kids never did.

He picks up his toys, and he comes when I call him.

He even turns off the lights for me.

Oh, sweet.

You’ve got to give me a couple of those.

Yeah.

It can’t be harder to raise than a toddler, right?

No.

What’s his name?

His first name is Semper, and his middle name is Fidelis.

Okay, very nice.

Semper Fidelis.

And what do you call him when you’re being sweet to him?

Sempy?

Oh, yeah, exactly, yeah.

That’s what we call them.

So you’re building Dog Run in McFarland, and I should say, you say dog park,

So there’s more than just a run.

Are there kind of amusements there?

I mean, what are we talking about here?

Water course, a sand pit, things to chase?

Actually not.

It’s kind of on the edge of town, and it’s surrounded by farmland and conservancy land,

So we’ve kind of kept it pretty natural looking.

We have some trails and some wooded areas,

You know, we left some shrubs and stuff in there.

So it’s mostly just a place for dogs to get together and run off leash.

Do the things that dogs do at dog parks.

Do the things that dogs like to do, yeah.

You can call it poo corner.

Oh, no.

Or not.

We’ll put that down on our list.

Okay.

At the very bottom, hidden under a fold or something.

Yeah.

All right.

So much for my contribution.

What else do you have there?

You have a list?

So, yeah, Judy, you’ve got a list, right?

You’ve got some stuff.

What do you like most?

Well, we came up with several ideas.

We have the McFarland McDog Park.

Okay.

And we have Dog Plex.

Dog Plex?

Dog Plex.

Like Multi Plex?

Yeah, that sounds like several stories high.

-huh.

And we have McFarland Unleashed.

Unleashed?

That sounds like an album or something.

Yeah.

Right.

And then I actually put a question on your discussion forum, and I got a few ideas from that as well.

Okay.

Central Park with an S.

Oh, like S-C?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

That’s cute.

Okay.

McFurland.

McFurland.

McFurland.

Oh, that’s okay.

And the First McFarland Dog Park.

First McFarland.

That sounds like a bank almost.

Or a Baptist church.

I like that.

People that didn’t want the dog park might think we’re going to have a second McFarlane dog park.

Oh, that’d be great just to get their goat, wouldn’t it?

Let me ask you, do you think the punny names might grow a little stale fast?

I think so.

Yeah, that’s a really good question.

What is it about dogs and cats that bring out the punster in people?

I mean, if you look through the phone book for dog and cat services, there’s some gosh awful names.

I think it’s because we treat our animals with such joy, right?

We have a very close connection, and they’re highly amusing.

They do crazy antics, and we think about the fun times with them

Rather than the 4 a.m. Walk because they need to poop.

Yeah, but I think you have a good point, Grant,

That how long is that pun going to be funny?

I mean, I kind of like McFerland.

I do too, but I would kind of stray from it.

Well, let me ask you, Judy.

Judy, did you consider just opening it up without a name and see what kind of naturally occurs?

Yes.

Actually, the park opens pretty soon, so it doesn’t have a name.

We just call it the McFarland Dog Park.

Well, we can certainly throw this out to our listeners and see what they come up with.

I’m sure a lot of people have had experience dealing with this kind of thing.

Absolutely.

Here’s the pitch.

The pitch is, what should McFarland call its first dog park?

Thank you so much for calling, Judy.

We’ll put this out to our listeners and see what we come up with, all right?

Great.

Okay. Thanks. Bye-bye.

Goodbye.

Well, if you have an idea for the McFarland Dog Park, a name that you particularly like,

Or some other idea about how to go about naming the park, give us a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673, or shoot us an email to words@waywordradio.org,

And we’ll talk about them on a future show.