The Life and Times of Olive the Pug, continued…

My gardening friend Donna S. recently rescued a Sheltie named Lily who had been a breeder dog.  And though you can never really replace a beloved pet, Lily is the successor to Donna’s dog Cocoa who passed away earlier this year.  When Lily arrived in their household, Donna and her husband Don were a little unhappy to find out that she wasn’t acting like the housebroken dog they had been promised.  But they are both compassionate people and decided to do the research into housebreaking an adult dog rather than giving up on keeping Lily as a pet.

That’s where Olive comes into this story.  Donna thought it would be a good idea to have a dog come over and “model” the proper way to take it outside, so to speak.  So Olive and I embarked upon a mission.  I loaded Olive into the car and we drove over to meet Lily.  Walking through Donna’s garden is never a hardship, believe me.  And, as if Olive knew where her duty lay, she decided to poop right away.  And after a few more steps, she left her other mark.  Lily was watching and learning because soon after that, she did her thing properly and got the proper praise from her new master.   My understanding is that she has been doing the right thing ever since.

After the walk through the garden, Donna and I sat in the kitchen and had a cup of coffee while Lily retreated to the safety of her crate to watch our every move and Olive went around sniffing everything in sight.  Then I loaded Olive back into the car and we drove home.  On the way home, I told Olive that she did a good thing with Lily and she glanced over at me looking very smug and satisfied and then, having done her bit to save a small but important piece of the world of dogdom, she went to sleep.

  Her work that day was done.

Lily

Olive