AMONG the good things to emerge from lockdown, two labradors just being dogs tops everything. Olive and her younger yellow counterpart, Mabel, shot to fame when their owner, sports commentator Andrew Cotter, found himself with no work. He dithered for weeks over putting the first video online, of the pair having dinner with labrador zeal to his commentary, but, when he did, it defined 'going viral, garnering shares from the likes of Dara Ó Briain and Ryan Reynolds. It was 'ridiculous, strange beyond imagining'.
Millions of people fell in love with Olive and Mabel: 'Dogs are one of the things that unite us all.' The two are very different, Olive steadier and more relaxed, Mabel baffled by everything. She's not as bright as Olive, there's no getting away from it. The second video, Game of Bones-shared by no less than Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill)―a tense drama concerning the ownership of an orange rubber bone, happens every day. 'When it comes to possessions, Mabel's the boss. Everything else, Olive's the boss. The toys don't belong to anyone, but if Olive has the bone, Mabel wants the bone.'
The third video shows Mabel standing in a pond, an expectant look on her beautiful face, others the pair on a Zoom call or online dating. They were just dogs being dogs. I'd never dress them up,' says Mr. Cotter. 'Even in the more contrived ones, they're happy, that's the main thing.' A brilliant, black-and-white perfume-ad parody, Canine, Pour Chiens, transforms beach scenes with a breathy voiceover: 'What do you really want... to dig, to roll in something unpleasant..."
Esta historia es de la edición June 15, 2022 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición June 15, 2022 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.