Team Orange Story

Winnie. (CH Seraphim My Ride's Here CGC) Born July 25, 2008. Her breeder, Peg, had put colored ribbons on all the pups in the litter to keep them apart. When I met them, I chose the yellow ribbon pup but other puppy parents still had to choose ahead of me. Not wanting to be a pest, I joked to Peg to let me know as soon as possible because I wanted to paint the puppy's bedroom yellow to match her ribbon. Peg called me soon after and told me, "Paint the room yellow. Sunshine (as Peg named her), is yours."

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Finn. (Vidor's Bach) Born January 11, 2008. When I got Winnie I became involved in the Wirehaired Vizsla community, and volunteered to design and edit a HWV club newsletter. In one issue, there was a show photo of a striking young dog bred by another friend in the breed, Carolyn. Three years later, Carolyn emailed me. My wife Sandy and I were at a bar next to a movie theater killing some time before a movie. I remembered the dog in the photo she sent from the newsletter years ago, and showed it to Sandy. Then I read aloud the end of the email, that Finn now needed a home. Without hesitation, Sandy said, "Get him." And I did. And it was one of the very best decisions of my life.

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Team Orange. At some point in the first year of having both Winnie and Finn, Sandy doesn't remember it but she came up with the name Team Orange. To say, "it stuck," is a gross understatement. Finn and Winnie truly were a team. They never once had even the slightest disagreement between them, and they were wonderful to bring together anywhere. Hiking, playing, napping, riding in the car, they were perfect together. Their coats were different. Winnie's was softer and longer, Finn's was shorter and more wiry. I started sketching the logo, finding a way to express their differences but still show them as sort of a matched pair. It was some time later when I realized many other folks in this breed either had one of each type of coat, or over the years have had both. I think that's why the logo, which began as a personal project to create a decal for my truck, resonated with so many others. Over the years, thousands of Team Orange decals have adorned trucks, dog boxes, beer fridges and more, all over the world. The image created to represent Finn and Winnie together, grew to mean so much more. And the logo has touched more people than I could have imagined.