From the Streets of Greece to the Côte d’Azur: A Canine Success Story

Just months ago, famed campus dweller, Ollie, was your average street dog in Greece. No longer. Ollie is better traveled than most of his human counterparts. From Greece, he made his way to the sunny Côte d’Azur. He spends his days lazing about the illustrious Sciences Po Menton campus — a university that, with a less than 20% acceptance rate, many of us struggled to get into. But Sciences Po is just a temporary stop on Ollie’s journey to New York City, where he will ultimately reside.

Ollie is many things: he is a chronic gnawer, a frequent park-goer, a champion hide-and-seeker, and a people person — though he’s still shy around other dogs. But these skills are not just any canine hobbies, according to his owner, professor Daniel Traficonte. These tendencies stem from the survival skills Ollie developed living on the streets and were essential to his escape.

“He used his cuteness to survive in the streets and get fed by locals,” said Traficonte. One part of the strategy is that Ollie never barks and is tame around people. Anyone kind enough to pet him may even bear witness to his go-to two-legged dance move.

Though Ollie refused to comment on this, Traficonte asserts that a main cause of Ollie’s success had to do with his breed and size. “He’s small enough to fit easily on a plane but also looks big enough to give a big dog vibe,” said Traficonte, describing the compromise he had to make with his wife to meet their differing desires in a dog. In fact, the couple had to do an intensive internet search to find a dog fitting this vision. The Kokoni, a native Greek breed, was the solution they found on an obscure Facebook group. They journeyed to Greece. The rest is history.

“I want to breed these in New York,” said Traficonte, arguing that if Americans knew about these perfect house dogs, everyone would own one. Though Traficonte’s career as a future dog breeder is up in the air with his wife opposing the career choice, one thing is certain: Ollie is going to love New York, and New York is going to love him back.

“We haven’t told [Ollie] yet,” Traficonte said regarding the family’s eventual move to the Big Apple. There, Traficonte will commute upstate to work as a tenured professor at Syracuse University one season per year.. Nevertheless, we asked Ollie whether he was excited for New York. He answered with an inquisitive stare, eyes wide open and tail rapidly wagging — a fitting response for the Odysseus of dogs.

With a brand new chapter on the horizon for Ollie, the Mentonese are bittersweet about his upcoming departure. “It’s tough to see him leaving just as we became so close,” said one emotional Sciences Piste. “Nonetheless, it will be incredible to watch him live the American Dream!” Only time will tell what Ollie will achieve in New York, but for now, he wishes for nothing but friends and trips.