grep exists, but doesn't find pattern

Ubuntu 10 32 bit installed on compac/hp w/ athlon dual core processor.
system is about a week old and I have just begun setting it up and finding out what does and doesn't work.

grep does't work.
I created a small open office file containing:
     the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy brown dog
     now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

grep dog test.odt returns nothing including an error message
grep dog test.odt > foo.txt creates an empty file
grep dog foo returns missing file err ms.

Not a unix expert, but have sporadic experience using several editors, awk, and of course, grep.
????
No idea what could be wrong.