There Is A First Time For Everything

Several years ago, on my first or second trip to Japan, I visited an upscale shopping center in Tokyo where one of the shops was a lovely clothing store, with a nice mix of high and low fashion, casual and formal wear, even pajamas and costumes. This store had both a men and women’s section and also has dressing rooms with mirrors, as most clothing stores do, but they were very small, even for Japan. What is interesting about this store? Why am I telling you about it? Because this full-service store in one of the finest shopping centers in Tokyo was a clothing store exclusively for dogs.

At the time I had three large dogs, Ollie, Claude, and Dune and never dressed my dogs at all. I live in California and two of those three dogs run hot. But while at this store, after closing my jaw and pushing my eyes back into my head, I actually started looking around for something to fit the big guys. Even though most of the dogs in Japan are small I did find a big British football (soccer) fleece that would fit someone in my household, and I bought it in a fit of “when in Rome” and glee thinking it would both please Ian and be fun for a quick photo op too.

In general I am not much into dressing dogs. Dogs should be treated like dogs and be able to act like dogs in all their glory. You know, roll in the dirt and in dead things, eat cat poop when they come upon it, and run and leap unencumbered by outfits. But of course over the years I’d dressed my dogs from time to time for my own amusement. Like the time I put my grandma’s wig on my mom’s GSD pup, for example.

We also do have a game in our SIRIUS® Puppy Classes where we dress the dogs in socks and t-shirts as a fun handling exercise. Because one of our major goals at SIRIUS is to help people raise handle-able adult dogs.

So my dogs always ran around naked, save for their collars. And then Ollie got old. He always was a dedicated sun-worshipper, but as he aged his penchant for warmth became an insatiable obsession, with me having to literally drag him OUT OF THE FIREPLACE on more than one occasion. In his final, thirteenth year on this planet, the poor old guy seemed to have a chill in his bones that he just couldn’t shake.

Then I remembered the funny Japanese/British football sweater, complete with hood and the rest is history. Ollie wore that sweater every day through his final winter, and when he passed in February of 2007 we even buried him in it. Rest in peace my little Ollie; I hope you are somewhere warm with sandy beaches, big waves, and eternal sunshine.
Ollie In The Sun