Champa? What’s All That About?

When asked the names of our puppies, we usually get a smile when we tell them Charlie’s name, and a confused look when we tell them Champa’s. It is usually repeated back along the lines of “Champ?”, “Shampers?”, “Jumper?” and it takes a few attempts for people to get it, often with an explanation of where it comes from.

My previous dog was called Inca. Keeping the same ‘theme’ I had in mind that my next dog would be called ‘Maya’ – ancient civilisations seemingly have the benefits of two syllables to aid easy yelling across a field, not being offensive (again, to aid yelling across a field!) and a name that generally people can spell (useful for vet’s receptionists!) and at least understand. Although I never would commit to a dog’s name until we have seen the dog and checked that it ‘fits’, I did have in mind that my next border collie would be Maya.

Then we travelled around Asia and got to know a bit about the history of the region. One of our favourite places was Laos, and the best time we spent in Laos was in the Free The Bears sanctuary in Luang Prabang, where we spent 3 weeks helping out with the 20 or so bears they have there. They have 5 cubs there and we spent a lot of time with the bear cubs – being slightly less dangerous than the 200kg adults we were at least able to interact with the cubs. One of the cubs was a poor little thing who had suspected hydrocephalus, as well as being almost blind and a little deaf. She had to be in an enclosure on her own for much of the daytime (though I believe she was to be moved in with the other young bears shortly after we left) as she would never win any competition for food, and kept bumping into things. She was called Champa, and the name suited her as it suits our Champa now. Champa is an ancient kingdom that covered much of Vietnam and some of Cambodia and Laos from the 7th to the 19th century. In honour, and memory, of Champa the bear cub, we decided to call our border collie Champa.