THE SENTIMENTAL Easter tale of how Still Game star Gavin Mitchell came to fall in love with a dog called Boaby could have been written by Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill themselves.

A few weeks ago, Gavin who played Boaby the barman in the iconic BBC sitcom, decided he wanted some doggy love in his life.

The actor, who lives in the west end of Glasgow, approached his nearest rescue centre to find the right pooch.

“I was shown four dogs,” he says, smiling, and right from the start I connected with this little mongrel, and he with me.

“It was love at first sight.

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“But I couldn’t believe it when the woman who runs the rescue centre told me the dog’s name was Boaby. And it had been named after me.”

Gavin exlains; “Four dogs had been rescued from Spain and brought to Glasgow – I’m not sure of the details why this was the case – but the woman who runs the centre told me she’d called the dogs Jack, Victor, Isa and Boaby after the Still Game characters.”

At the time, Gavin, who is appearing at Glasgow’s Oran Mor theatre in Casablanca this week, as Bogart, had no idea of the names of the little mongrels.

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“I just thought one of them was fantastic and we took to each other straight away.”

Gavin was given time to go off and make sure he really wanted the responsibility of a dog in his life.

But the actor, who will appear soon in the new Netflix series The Last Czars, playing the Grand Duke of Russia, was smitten.

“I’d thought about having a dog for a while, but I’m so glad I made the choice.

“When I went back to see Boaby for the second time it was as though we should never have been apart.”

He grins; “It will be interesting to see the looks I get when I throw a tennis ball in the park and call out ‘Boaby!”

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