Olive and Mabel go viral

Nov 2, 2020

I was forced to watch 60 Minutes the other night when Andrew Cotter, the Scottish sports commentator, was talking about his now-famous labradors, Olive and Mabel.

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It was a bitter pill to swallow: while The Boss has spent the lockdown cleaning out the shed, spraying weeds and sorting out socks that don’t match, Mr Cotter has used his talents to turn his dogs into celebrities.

It started about seven months ago. Instead of preparing for Wimbledon and the Tokyo Olympics, Mr Cotter reflected deeply on his two dogs – Olive is the older black lab and Mabel the junior cream one – eating breakfast. And he made a race out of it:

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Some people might think dogs eating breakfast is a mundane affair but it’s not from a dog’s point of view – I always try to wolf mine down fastest so I can help out Queenie if she hasn’t finished. Although she’s been known to nip me on the nose if I’m not quick about it.

Anyway, Mr Cotter extracts all the drama and tension anyone is ever likely to find in two dogs eating breakfast. Emboldened and encouraged by a million people looking at the video on YouTube, he posted a second one, called Game of Bones:.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }

This was a life-and-death tussle over a dog’s dummy - and really gets the pulse rate thumping. After that, the third video, Walk of Shame, finds the two hounds in a gladatorial struggle in a fetid pond, where both dogs emerge wet and smelly but neither is disgraced:

Then came a video called The Company Meeting, where Olive and Mabel have to front up to an appraisal from their supervisor, on a Zoom call. Mabel gets into trouble for being distracted during the discussion, partaking in some self-indulgent scratching and amusing herself during a serious talking-to:

By this time, the Olive and Mabel videos have gone properly viral, with more than 50 million views and celebrity endorsements. Mr Cotter started receiving offers for all sorts of commentaries, including commentating on pizzas being made. He resisted most - but kindly agreed to help out the Victorian Tourism Authority with a funny commentary on the Philip Island Penguin Parade:

Now Mr Cotter has written a book about his dogs, making them even more famous. He’s been doing the rounds of the book festivals lately, so Olive and Mabel have been able to meet lots of interesting people.I don’t want to sound ungrateful but it is time The Boss lifted his game.He could take a few pointers from Mr Cotter, who doesn’t shout at his dogs but speaks with that soft Scottish lilt (it reminds us all of Sean Connery this week) and has a fine, droll sense of humour.He’s an optimist too, which The Boss approves of. He said at the end of his60 Minutes interview that he figures the future of mankind is probably okay – that it generally trends upwards and we’re going through a trough at the moment. There's enough good people, he says, to keep it going in the right direction. And dogs, of course. Woof!

By McPherson Media Group