Olive, Mabel, & Me: Life and Adventures with Two Very Good Dogs

 by Andrew Cotter

Hennepin County Library hardcover 205 pages (with photos)

Published: 2020

Genre: non-fiction, dogs

This was so good! Besides reading it right after Blum's very sad dog book, Cotter is a talented writer. I loved this book! (Enough to consider buying copies to give as gifts to other dog lovers.) 

Page 5 - "Dogs, by contrast, offer constant and easy love. You don't have to work too hard to get their unfettered adoration and no stroking, tickling, or patting will go unappreciated."

Page 17 - ". . . just make use of the parks or settle for walks down the pavement. It's a poor substitute for beaches or fields or mountains, but dogs don't think about what they might be missing or worry about what they don't have. They simply enjoy what's on offer . . . "

Page 23 - He makes me laugh throughout this book! He has a noble-sounding quote theoretically from 1782 followed by "(On the Origins of Dogs by Andrew Cotter - don't look, I think it's out of print.)" He's got a delightful sense of humor.

Page 31 - "We had also been reliably informed that dogs - or certainly Labradors - are desperate to please their owners, and that this can be used very effectively in training. But with my experience of Labs now, I believe there is a more obvious hierarchy in their heads of what is most important: 

1. Food

2. Food

3. Food

4. Also food

5. Human approval"

 

Page 43 - Writing about trying to get Olive to wear expensive dog boots for a winter mountain climb:

Before my own investigations, I had even bought boots for Olive - proper outdoor boots, meant for dogs working on ice - that cost more than most human shoes. There were just a couple of problems with this, the first major stumbling block being that dogs don't like wearing boots.

I had obtained a set from a good-quality dog outdoor-wear supplier, and they did fit her paws well. But the process of getting them on took approximately seventeen hours. During this time she stared at me with eyes that contained an impressive mixture of sadness for her own situation and contempt for me. Then, when cajoled to move, she did so with the utmost reluctance, stepping gingerly about before beginning a quite complex dressage routine with a high-stepping gait, as if trying to shake them off. Eventually, she decided that the best thing to do would be to settle down and chew them into submission.

 

Page 77 -  "This ancestry is clearly why Olive and Mabel will rarely pass anything bigger than a puddle without wishing to dive in." 

Made me think of Keiko wanting to jump in the pond! And Titus' love of "splash."

Page 122 - "Still, some people do not like dogs and I completely understand that - it certainly doesn't make them bad people. If you want a nice relaxing drink and then a yapping or perhaps slightly grubby creature appears beside you, it can sully the experience. I feel this way about many children."

Page 193 - He includes an excerpt from Rudyard Kipling's "The Power of the Dog" and I made note of it to read in full. (Read here.)