They’re all good dogs in ‘Olive, Mabel & Me’

I really needed this book. It’s a gentle, often humorous and occasionally profound story of a man and his dogs, and a fair bit of mountain walking thrown in. If you were hanging around on Twitter last March, you may have come across a cute little video tweet featuring two dogs having an eating contest, as their sports commentator owner provided the play-by-play commentary, as seen here:

It’s a clever takeoff on traditional sports commentary but of course what makes it so charming (beyond the very appealing Scottish accent of Mr. Cotter) are those adorable Labradors, Olive (the black one) and Mabel. It went as viral as you’d expect, ricocheting around the Internet at a time when we were all just beginning to come to terms with what the pandemic had in store for us. I loved it, promptly began following Cotter (who I confess to never having heard of, not being privy to much in the way of overseas sports broadcasting) and delighted in the occasional videos he has posted since. (If you’d like to catch up, you can find them all on his YouTube channel.)

Really, there’s not much more to say. If you love dogs, I think you’d very much enjoy the book. The canine averse will probably want to give it a pass. It is not a book that will haunt your dreams or cause you to despair of the loss of our common humanity — that’s what the news is for. Indeed, it will not teach you much about the world, except that Dogs Are Very Good Boys and Girls. I deducted a half-star only because the author has an unfortunate fondness for sentence fragments that made my left eye twitch just a tiny bit. A few moments’ break to look at pictures of Olive and Mabel and all was well again.