Okay, here goes...
April 1st. April Fool's Day to most, but to me, the day my dog was born. That's right, a day that changed my life. Of course, I didn't know it at the time. So, pull up some floor, pop a squat or have a seat... I'll tell you the story.
The year was 2001 and I was still in school at the great University of Georgia. I was destined to graduate in December and things were looking up. My girlfriend at the time and I had lost our dog to a speeding car a few months earlier but I was already talking about filling the void. I had been holding down a job at a local pet store for a year or so and happened to be working the register that fateful evening.
A young couple, at least a couple years my junior, were at the register purchasing something when a lady in her 40's came in with a tiny fawn-colored puppy in her hands. The girl I had been helping fell in love immediately and began trying to persuade her less than enthusiastic boyfriend that they needed to take it home. He made the off-color comment, "Sure we'll take it. If it doesn't work out, we can always eat it" and laughed. My coworker and I looked at each other and, without saying a word, agreed that one of us would take that dog. I pulled the lady aside and told her our plan. She immediately gave us the dog, not wanting the young couple to have her.
She told us that she bred yellow labs and her breeding female had been visited by the neighborhood boxer and she was giving away the puppies. This one was the runt and she had had trouble getting rid of her. She was tiny and had just been weened.
Over the next couple of hours, we helped the little puppy stand on the slick tile floors of the pet store and let her test drive most of the dog toys in the store. All the while, I was trying to figure out how to put it to my domestic partner that we had just taken in a new dog. She still didn't think she was ready for another dog.
I soon called her and fabricated a story about how the store was donating some large aquariums to a school and no one at the store had a vehicle big enough to carry them. We would need her Blazer to transport them. She bought it, but was not happy about being volunteered for service.
After a few minutes she arrived and I put the puppy in her arms and said, this is our new dog. She was not happy, to say the least. After I explained what had happened and that my coworker would take the dog if it didn't work out, she took the little girl home. By the time I got home, there was no chance that dog was going to the coworker.
So, we named her Ollie, after Oliver Hardy of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. Although, she is much closer to a Stan Laurel. She has been in tow with me up to Vermont, down to South Carolina and now to Virginia. I think she loved Vermont the most and it broke my heart almost as much to leave as to make her leave.
Anyway, Ollie turns 7 years old today. She is the sweetest dog in the world and I love her.
