Coming Home To Otto

Otto was not the normal adopt a dog kind of story. I actually had absolutely no idea I was even getting a dog at all.

The summer before I turned 18 I nagged and nagged and nagged my parents about how much I wanted my own dog. We have two beautiful family collies, Meg and Bep, that I love dearly, but I wanted a dog that was my own. I wanted to train my own dog, take it on adventures, love it and have the kind of friendship that goes with ‘a girl and her dog’. My parents made it very clear that it was not going to happen. Very funny!!

On my 18th birthday little, old, unsuspecting me was given a bag of ‘wine’ to put into the garage as we had family round to celebrate. I got all the way to the garage before I was told to take the bottles out. Confused, I looked in the bottom of the bag and staring straight back at me were a pair of piercing blue, puppy eyes that looked just as confused as I was. All I remember next was a whirlwind of emotion, I had a puppy!? And not just any puppy, a border collie blue merle. It was definitely love at first sight. Apparently I was supposed to realise it wasn’t wine in the shopping bag when the puppy moved, but he didn’t move a muscle the whole time he was there. That sums him up basically, he will just go along with anything and see it all as one big adventure.

After some debate about what I should call him, while reading out a list of names I came across Otto. We all just looked at him and no other name fit like that one did. So my blue eyed collie puppy was christened Otto, or Ottopottomous as many call him.

Owning my own dog has definitely been challenging from time to time. When you have two fully house trained dogs, stepping in a puddle in the kitchen, with your socks on, is definitely enough to test anyone’s patience. But Otto has been a rock in my life. He’s my best friend, I take him everywhere I can and he just goes with it. He’s built for adventure, cuddles and to try to sneak twigs in the house when he thinks your not looking.

Otto has such a human-like smile and the ability to make everything feel better. Whenever I feel like I’m not good enough, like im letting everyone down or I’m being overly anxious, Otto makes it known that he is happy to see me and makes me feel like even if all the negative thoughts were true, he is still proud of me. Owning your own dog at 18 definitely isn’t for everyone, but I wouldn’t change a single thing. Otto is my pal, my happy place and the biggest pain in my bum. I wouldn’t swap him for anything.