In August of 1987,
Oreo and I moved to Chicago, which was 200 miles north of where I went to college. The very first Friday night we lived in our new house, Oreo somehow
pawed the door open in the middle of the night and ran out to play with
another dog. I vaguely remember hearing him leave, but was too tired to get up.
After all, Oreo ALWAYS came back home. He was the dog who went to every class in college with me and waited outside every building. He had never been on a leash. What I forgot however, was that
there had been a major flood in Chicago that week. Oreo was in new
surroundings and couldn’t find his scent back to our new house. He knew
that home was “south” so he started walking. By noon that day (roughly
8 hours), Oreo had walked 45 miles to Oakbrook, Illinois. He stopped
off at the
Western Open Golf Tournament, where a Chicago Tribune
photographer snapped this photo, which appeared on the front page of
the paper’s Sports section that Sunday. Seeing this unfold, a woman named Lola Proulx (who I am friends with to this day), bought 8 hot dogs and earned Oreo’s
trust by feeding him. She was able to get him to the Humane Society,
and they traced his tags back to our former home, where I had already
called with my new contact information. I went to pick Oreo up the
following Monday, 60 miles south of where he first started his journey.
From that day forward he was scared to death of trains, which led me to
believe he had a very close call with a train on his journey south. He
went on to live 9 more wonderful years, and even survived an
assassination attempt by a local campus keystone cop, and a close call
with a herd of massive elk. He appeared on the second season of
Friends, and made other front page headlines throughout his 12 year
storied life. He traveled with me through 30 of the 50 states, and was a friend to everyone who met him! All of these are stories for another entry though. I’ll write one soon. My cousin Lisa even named her dog after Oreo!
Speaking of Lisa, take a look at this outfit she bought Tommy & Andy for Halloween! Sadly, they didn’t like it, so she returned it. I still don’t have a costume for next week. Any ideas??
The world needs a movie like this right now. It’s amazing. 
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