ANDREW & MOMO

by Michelle Ransom-Hughes, featuring Andrew Knapp

Andrew Knapp

The other day I was at the park with the dogs, and another dog owner there, he’s like, “How old is Momo?”

I said, “He's almost thirteen”. And he's like, “How long do you think he has left?”

And I was kinda like, “Wow, that's a question!”

I kind of just said, you know, “I’m hoping he sticks around for the summer”.

I obviously can't know. But yeah, hard questions are okay.

Michelle

That’s Andrew Knapp, talking about his best friend, Momo: a black and white border collie.

Andrew gets hard questions about Momo all the time these days, mostly on his hugely popular social media posts.

When you look in the comments, along with hundreds of heart eyes and hug emojis, you see the genuine concerns of all these people.

People who’ve watched Momo grow up and grow old online.

SFX: Ontario woodland in autumn/ fall

Andrew’s Canadian and he’s a photographer and graphic designer.

Back in 2011, in the early days of Instagram, Andrew posted a photo which would change his life entirely.

You can still see it. it’s a tranquil image: like you’re stopped for a moment on a forest path and everything’s bathed in the golden colours of fall.

Then, back behind the tall grasses - you make out the face of a little black and white dog - gazing right at you: Momo.

The story goes that Andrew threw a stick into the woods that day, and it was Momo that began this epic game of hide and seek.

Something about the visual challenge of it clicked with Andrew’s design sense so he started a series of pictures, and he tagged it, FindMomo.

I was sharing it on instagram, and my friends were tagging their friends and saying, “Hey, check this out. My friend is hiding his dogs in photos”.

It went viral and people enjoyed it.

That right there, “It went viral and people enjoyed it”.

Buzzfeed picked up on the “Find Momo” thing, and soon Andrew and Momo had a hundred thousand followers. Before the bots came to Instagram - that was a huge number.

That following helped them to travel ( across the Americas, then Europe), building a kind of community around them.

Lots of us have a deep affection for dogs we’ve only come to know through social media.

And so I wanted to know, what’s going on behind the scenes with this guy and his now senior dog, who’s beloved by thousands of strangers?

I’m Michelle Ransom-Hughes, and this is Oh My Dog

MUSIC: Oh My Dog theme (Come To Me)

When Andrew first got a puppy, he couldn’t have known it would lead to them publishing four photo books together.

The most popular of these by far, was a board book for kids. So naturally, the publishers asked him if he’d like to make another.

I said, “I'd love to make another one with some sort of purpose, you know something behind it”, and I wasn't gonna steer the ship into showing kids how to protest or, or fight for what's right environmentally, or whatever.

SFX: soundscape from Canadian summer

But obviously as an animal lover, you have an appreciation for nature, and you recognise its importance. and at the very root of that is just the connection with it.

So, I said let's make, “Let's find Momo outdoors”, where we go on a camping trip. So it's accessible, you know?”

Before Andrew got a dog, he was a fairly urban kind of dude.

SFX: dog collar tinkles/ park with birds/ forest

I definitely owe a lot of my appreciation for the outdoors to Momo. When I got a border collie, almost thirteen years ago, and we were getting bored of the walk down the street,

and a walk to the park, there was only one thing left to do and one place left to go. And that was to hit the trails, to start to explore the hills and the mountains in my northern Ontario landscape.

And, and so we got out there and we started finding our favourite spots.

And I think we started finding a lot of solace in just being in the quietness of outdoors. There was something so calming about it, so attractive about it.

No one’s suggesting they’ve become intrepid

SFX: Footsteps through snow/ background rain/ a van door slides open, then shut and the weather stops

I'm uncomfortable when it's too cold. I hate it. I can't stand the cold. I'm from northern Ontario and I wasn't meant to be. So I’m comfortable when the weather is right.

I do, I travel by van a lot. So I have amenities, though, you know, I don't have a toilet typically. and I do love the outdoors for that. But, no, I'm not really an outdoors adventure type, you know.

I have friends who go out there with a backpack and they pack their life in their backpack and they go for seven day treks or whatever they do, and it's beautiful.

And I've yet to really break through that. So I'd say I’m comfortable because I bring my comforts with me. And I haven't yet done the super adventurous stuff. And it's mostly because I have the dogs. Well, that's my excuse at least.

Yaeh, they mostly travel by van but these stunning images of Momo, in pristine lakes, on dappled forest trails, by the shores of mighty rivers… they're pretty aspirational.

They make me daydream about maybe going hiking. But what’s it really like out there?

In the experience of being outdoors whether you're on a bike or hiking, or, or are in a canoe or whatever, you're mostly thinking about, like surviving.

Like, if you're doing a seven day hike, you're spending a lot of hours every day moving.

And then there's this moment where you've eaten. Or there's this moment where you're in the middle of the lake, and there's no bugs, or there's this moment where the sun's starting to go down and it's cooling off. And those little moments of, of um... where you can, where you have no choice but to be mindful, you know, you're basically forced into a meditative state, dizzy from walking and moving, and you're just, you're just being.

Those are the, you know, the most beautiful moments.

Or at the end of the day where you're here you're sitting next to a fire watching it crackle.

And you're either laughing with someone or chatting about something deep, or completely quiet and just watching it and feel no need at all to say anything.

SFX: small puppy wrestling/ border collie barking/ a VW kombi door closes/ the engine starts and accelerates then fades out

The trip that we took for this kids’ book was stressful. it was in the heat of summer, I had two dogs with me in the car, Boo was still a puppy in training.

And it was in the midst of the pandemic, where funny enough, the outdoors had never been busier, because everybody was escaping. So all of the quiet little spots that I was hoping to find were inundated with people.

And I was like, this is great. It's nice to see everyone getting outside. But also, where's my quietude?

Somehow, in the vastness of Canada, he found it. And made photos. and now they're in a book

I asked Andrew about his childhood dog, TJ.

TJ was ah, a sweet border collie. Um, the red, the red-coloured border collie.

I was the fourth of four kids. I definitely felt like ah, an afterthought, you know? Um I was a, I felt like a burden back then. And um I was kind of a loner and, um, ah yeah, I'd like to stay out of the way.

But then, TJ was, always, you know, ready to interact. Loved to go on walks with me. And I love to go on walks with him.

And I, you know, trained him how to bring the ball back and put it in my hand and I was always really proud of that and kind of fell in love with border collies because of that.

And it was my first connection with any of our dogs. We had tuffy before TJ. TJ was actually Tuffy Jr.

He was funny. But yeah, TJ was my connection.

There it is, Andrew and a border collie, back in the 90s.

And another thing, his Dad brought home a digital camera - it was the Apple ‘Quicktake’.

It was the lowest resolution camera you can imagine. But I think that was the one that really got me.

Yeah, because they didn't feel... like if I was shooting film, I had to get a ride to develop it. Or I had to figure out how to develop it. And I wasn't a kid who would go out of his way to figure things out.

I was a kid who'd like to stay out of everyone's way. And having the digital camera meant I didn't have to bother anyone.

Loner kid with a camera… needs subject.

So, I would take photos of Tuffy. I remember I'd do, I would like, replace my head with Tuffy’s head in Corel photo paint or whatever it was called. And did all these weird things.

Michelle on Skype

Early memes!

Yeah, early memes.

I love this so much. Very Michael Apted.

SFX Montage of Canadian and US morning show TV appearances with laughing hosts introducing Andrew and Momo

When I say Momo got famous… we’re not talking Doug the Pug style internet fame.

Yeah, they've done breakfast TV and a TED talk, but Momo doesn't get dressed up, the endorsements are on brand and pretty low key.

The vibe is mostly about being kind… and just - ‘How great is Momo?”

But it interests me that someone who felt so outside of things as a kid now has this very public facing life, via his dog.

I see Instagram as a show and tell. And I used to love show and tell because show and tell meant... and I just mean, like, I brought something interesting to class, because I liked the attention of being seen.

And so Instagram became this show and tell culture. I think that was born out of my coping mechanisms as a kid.

M (interview tape)

That is so cute. Can I just ask you, though... with our show and tell, no one was allowed to ask you any questions?

Right? No one can one-up you about it. No one can say, “yeah, but I have this”.

Yeah. I suppose it'd be like a no comments post.

Yeah, yeah. Comments barred.

Do you read the comments?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm obsessed.

It’s I think, I think, I think there's some narcissism in there. (laughs) Like when you, you know, you like to read the comments and see what the feedback... I don't know what the obsession is with reading comments.

People are communicating with you. why wouldn't you want to read them?

Yeah, it's attention. I love attention. As much as I've worked on that, and, you know, I've managed it and kind of like, navigated it. I still love attention. I think everybody does

I mean, you've been doing it for such a long time now, so it would have changed your relationship with the audience, or the friends, or the fans or however you describe them, the followers?

Yeah it's, it's definitely kind of become, like less of a conversation tool and more of a conversation.

Like, I see the same people. And I feel like I know a lot of them by name. And by little profile picture, you know? The ones that comment all the time.

Or the ones that send me messages, or the ones that you know, even subscribe to the newsletter.

I feel like I know them and it, it feels nice, you know, it feels like love. It feels like, um, it feels like friends.

And especially in a time where I definitely miss hanging out with friends. I miss going to friends’ places and just being a bunch of people in a backyard. I guess especially right now. it's nice to have that.

It's interesting that there’s a condition around it, “… it feels like friends”

Because you know, you don't meet them. Well, I guess I have met a lot of people. We did our book tours. You know, we did a book tour for every book, I think. Yeah. And so we've met, like thousands of people and I, I talk about bridges, you know, how you know dogs are bridges to our life's events.

Momo has met my Mom who passed away six or seven years ago now. And Momo has met Boo, and Boo’s not met my Mom.

So there's that, there's these connections of things in our lives that dogs are this, you know, if we're lucky 13 or so year, bridge between our life's events, and, and the connection is, you know, it's big, like, the connection to my Mom, or it's smaller, like the 1000s of people that he's met, and these people who messaged me and say, you know, “I got to meet Momo, in Ohio in 2017. And this is a picture that I took of you and Momo”, or me and Momo.

And ah - those are really special. And back then it was, it was a whirlwind. And now it's a little tiny bridge.

Do you mean there's a bit less sort of, noise around it all at the moment?

Yeah, definitely. I think. I've tried to calm down in the past few years.

In 2019, I decided to, to try to stay in place a little better. You know, travelling for me was an escape, was a way to not deal with things.

So I decided I'm going to not travel for a little bit, and really try to work on those things.

And then, end of 2019, I didn't get very far. And then 2020 happened and I had no choice but to keep trying. It's been a lot calmer.

And i've been really practising ‘being’, rather than needing to be wherever is ‘next’.

Andrew's been pretty reflective on his socials this past year. He's talked about grief, and also about giving up drinking.

This apparent openness is a real feature of many of his posts... especially so when he adopted a second dog, named Boo.

Poor momo... not pleased for a while there. Things off camera weren’t picture perfect and Andrew didn’t pretend they were.

When I adopted Boo, as a second dog, I wanted a dog that Momo, you know, can hang out with and get along with.

So I got this dog, knowing it wasn't a purebred border collie, but believing it was part border collie. It was advertised as a border collie. And I was like, oh, this is perfect.

You know, at least as long as it's part border collie, then Momo will probably love to play with this dog.

And it turned out that he is a Texas mutt. I think he's part cattle dog, part terrier, maybe part dalmatian? He's a really interesting looking dog.

Really interesting. And where Momo is black and white, Boo is white and black.

I like to look for meaning in things, because it helps me work on things, to help me understand things. But yeah, Boo is the reverse of Momo. And I feel like, ah, maybe that's because I need to shift gears in life, you know.

And there was a… there was the godly occurrence of Momo’s face appearing in Boo’s fur, in his spots on his back. Boo has, like he's got this like merle speckle, and I looked at it one day, I was like, oh my God, that's Momo’s face.

Granted, I do see Momo’s face everywhere.

Momo’s face has become like family to the fans too.

Sometimes we watch the little videos of Momo staring right into the lens - and can imagine he’s looking at us.

We’ve watched his colours fade, the regal silver come through, and the outline of that lovely dog, has it blurred, just a little?

And so we ask (in the comments), “How’s Momo?”

And we wonder (to ourselves) how long border collies can live.

When i'm petting his face, he's usually looking at me in the eyes. I think that connection is… is getting harder, because he's got cognitive dysfunction.

And he's got arthritic, arthritic pain, which, you know, I’m navigating and trying to manage as best I can.

You know, when I'm scratching his head, now, sometimes he starts to twist his head into my hand and, like, twists it like an owl, like 270 degrees, you know?

So there's, there's been less opportunities for those connections, which is, that's been, that's been hard.

I lay down on the floor next to him, often enough, and just kind of sit with him.

It's definitely not what it was when he was younger and agile and moved around a lot.

But it's its own new thing that's teaching me completely different things, or at least teaching me things in a completely different way.

Yeah, it's definitely a changing relationship - less him taking care of me and more me taking care of him, at this point.

M (interview tape)

Are you ready for that?
AK

Yeah, I think so. I don't want it, but I’m ready for it. If i had a choice, I would say “Let's get puppy Momo back”.

But ah, we don't get that choice. And i'm here for him. And I actually have his massage therapist appointment in a little bit.

I bring him to his hydrotherapy every week. We do all sorts of things for his hips and his health...

But it's interesting, we do it in hopes that we can reverse things a little bit, when the truth of it is that, age is age, you know?

He's just old. It's not like “His arthritis has progressed to this point, let's reverse it”. It's, that's not an option. It's, let's manage the pain and make sure he's happy and comfortable.

Was it hard to get to that point of acceptance?
AK

It's so gradual, you know. I think it's harder when it happens all at once, right? And I know that when the time comes, it will feel abrupt. But so far, it's been gradual.

But there, there have been moments… there was a day, maybe a month ago, where suddenly he couldn't get up at all.

That was really hard.

And a couple of days later, he started getting up on his own again.

And so, I'm, I'm fearful of another day like that, but it's worse, you know. Because I don't know why that happened. Or we didn't do anything differently.

So I know that it could be unprovoked, that it can be completely unexpected.

I mean, I'm ready to manage it. I have been. Ah - I've started... this was really difficult, actually, last week, I decided to start researching at-home euthanasia.

And... and that's hard.

That’s another step isnt it?

Yeah. But it's, I think it's important to do ah before... it's important to do while, a friend said, while you don't need to do it.

His least favourite place in the world is the vet, and so that's not where he's coming to an end. You know, so I need to make sure of that.

In the meantime - Andrew has a new book and he seems super happy to be sharing Momo (and Boo) this way.

It's the opportunity to share it with people and for people to be able to sit with the magical creature that is Momo. And get to know him, and get to see my photos, which is really cool.

And get some of the experience that... that I'm getting. And I think that's, you know, the goal of my art at least is to share the experience.

I guess on my end, the feedback of that is a really beautiful thing.

M (interview tape)

What sort of feedback do you enjoy the most?

The unexpected ones, the, you know, at least one person whose mother or, you know, a family member had dementia, and said that the Momo book was something that they shared with them, and that they could connect to with them.

And there was some, you know, kids with autism, that connected with their caregivers. And through the book, through playing Find Momo.

I can't ask for anything more than, I created connection. you know?

Andrew sells these metal pins or badges that I like - they say “Be more like your dog”.

M (interview tape)

I'd love to know some of the things that you identify as being very doglike, or that you and Momo have in common.

I think one of the things I appreciate the most is curiosity.

And there's a quote, I think it's Walt Whitman. And it's ‘Be curious, not judgmental’. It's probably better worded than that.

But ah, dogs approach everything I think, most of the time, with curiosity. And I love that.

What else do you think is is a great quality of dogs, that you would aspire to have more of in your life?

Probably the ability to exert 100% of my energy. I think intrinsically, humans are lazy.

At least I am. but we're not lazy, we just we just preserve our energy. right? we're good at that.

But when dogs… You know, if we had that energy, that gusto, that like, you throw a ball for a border collie in his youth, he will give 100%.

He will run with every single tissue of muscle in his body to catch that ball.

This is a great one and there are lots of ways of giving 100%.

From what I can see Andrew seems to be doing it by caring for dear Momo, with exactly that amount of gusto.

MUSIC: Oh My Dog Theme (instrumental)

Thanks, Andrew for speaking with me from British Columbia.

Momo and Boo are on Instagram under Andrew Knapp - that’s k n a double p.

Oh My Dog is made on the land of the Turrbal and Jagera people, whose sovereignty was never ceded.

This episode was written and produced by me, Michelle Ransom-Hughes

Music kindly provided by Sergi Boal, and also by Sound of Picture.

The mix is by Dylan, and our theme is by Seja, you can find other music credits on our website.

Special thanks to Wendy Love, Halina Baczkovski, and Sophie Ransom. And to Rebecca Armstrong, for introducing me to Momo.

Thank you for listening to oh my dog

M (interview tape)

Thank you, so much.

Oh, thank you for having us. I really appreciate it. And I really love what you’re doing. The idea of chatting with people about their dogs is so simple and so beautiful and it’s important. It's important work..

(laughs) Let’s keep doing it.

(laughs) Okay.