Remembering Roxie, My Walking Buddy Saint Bernard

Dogs come into our lives to teach us about love; they depart to teach us about loss. ~Erica Jong

I lost one of my walking buddies last week. Roxie lived across the road from me. She came to her family when she was a pup and already bigger than many dogs are when they are grown. A fuzzy furry sweatheart. Then she grew some more and became a regal, full size Saint Bernard. Her family has a house with one of those porches that go around two sides of it and Roxie liked to sit on that side porch facing my house and keep watch on her world. When the grandkids came to visit and we were outside, Roxie liked to meander on over to our yard to check out what was happening. 

And she loved to go walking with Oscar and me. Every day she'd be out on the porch or yard with an ear out to listen for us to head out to the field for our walk. In her early years, she always heard me, but the last couple of years, her hearing suffered and if she fell asleep on the porch waiting for us, she didn't always wake up. I couldn't help feeling a little guilty when we came back from our walk and she'd be awake and come off the porch to give me that look that said "why did you go without me." A few times I would walk back down the lane because she looked so disappointed. 

She did have that slobber problem that dogs with big mouths have. And she did like to lean on you. Early on, I decided that blue jeans are easy to wash and a little Saint Bernard slobber is a small price to pay for such a sweet companion. My grandkids weren't as sure about that, especially when she came close and shook her head. Then the slobber slingers got them. She wasn't a neat dog. When we walked in the cow pastures, she would rub her neck down in the fresh cow piles as though putting on a little perfume. Not sure her family appreciated her walking with me on those days! She was also quick to scavenger any dead animals we came across. It was useless trying to get her to leave the carcass be. She simply picked whatever it was up and headed for home. Another time her family probably wasn't so happy I'd led her astray. 

She loved the snow because that was her element. She was more than ready to walk when the ground was covered in white. It was easy to imagine her in the Alps with a keg around her neck searching out somebody lost in the snow.  Oscar, who also likes the snow, enjoyed having Roxie along on our walks. They were buddies and the longer walks the better for both of them. Snow in the winter, the creek in the summer were their favorites. 

Then Friday a week ago after I got home from my trip to California, I went for a walk in the rain. Roxie was right there with me and seemed the same as any other day. But the next day she must have had a heart attack. They found her with no sign of trauma, just gone on. I miss her now when we walk. A little Roxie slobber on my jeans would be more than welcome. Roxie bulldozed her way through life, going where she wanted to go and living her her dog life to the fullest. She was a very good neighbor and walking buddy. Go rest high on that mountain, Roxie, where all good dogs surely wait at the gate to welcome their families (and a neighbor or two) home.


Dogs' lives are too short...their only fault, really. ~Agnes Sligh Turnbull

A good dog never dies. ~Mary Carolyn Davies

Every Dog Needs a Name

Dogs, Dogs, and More Dogs
Last week on my Facebook author page, I asked for suggestions for a dog's name. I posted the first picture above as a look alike of the dog in my current work in progress. But he's not exactly right. My dog may be a little more like picture two. And of course Oscar in picture three is wondering why I had to write about a dog that wasn't him. Actually, my fictional dog is a mix of all three. He's not quite as big as dog two, but the look on that dog's face captures some of the personality of my fictional dog. And yet he also has some of the eagerness to please that seems to be in the expression of dog one. And he has a dollop of Oscar's calm confidence.

That's the way it is with coming up with characters whether they are the four-pawed kind or the human kind. A writer takes a little of this and a little of that and invents the character or in this case, dog, that fits her story.

Some Stories have to have a Dog
I have been a dog lover all my life, but I've not written very many books with dogs that played a major role in the story. There was Jocie with her "dog prayer" and then she finds Zeb in the woods or Zeb finds her. A couple of my young adult novels had dogs and in For Sheila, the dogs were major characters and central to the plot. In Chance Hero there was a dog named Maybe. And in my Rosey Corner books, Graham has a dog named Poe and one named Chaucer in Love Comes Home, the book due out in July. I like writing dogs into the story whether they figure strongly in the plot or not. 

A Name that Fits
This dog, the one I'm trying to name, is more central to what's happening in the book. So he needs a really good name. A name that fits. Of course, all characters need a name that fits. Have you ever read a book where you thought the names were all wrong? I have. I've even named some characters of my own and then realized deep in the story that the name just wasn't right. That's how it is with my dog character. I named him Ash. Not bad, but not exactly right either. So I threw open the question of what to name him to my friends on my Facebook page. And boy, did the names start coming in! Around 90 of them. And very few repeat names. Now I have so many choices I'll be able to name every dog in my stories from now on.

The Naming Begins
A few names got more than one vote: Chance, Amos, Sky, Jack, Dash, Shep, Duke and Rocky. But there were many other great suggestions. Some Bible names like Ezra, Bartholomew, Jericho, Joshua, Asher, Joash, Isaac, Jeremiah, and Job. Some of the dog names echoed names I've used for dogs in my life or that I have known like Buster, Max, Tate, Pete, Beau, Roscoe, Charcoal (Coal), Casey and of course, Oscar. A few suggested Civil War names: Yank, Yankey, Jeb, Lincoln (Link), Shiloh, Rebel, Trooper and Sarge. I had suggestions that made me think dogs like Prince, Ace, Rags, Dutch, Ruff, Kip, Rusty, Shadow, Champ, Patch, Pepper, Bingo, Smokey, Smiley, Spark, Lucky, Duke and King. Or Muffin that for some reason made think more of a cat. Some of the names echoed names I've given to my human characters in books, Victor, Love, Sammy, Jake, Stan, Jasper, Buck, Isaac, and Asa.  There were a few names that were a little too fancy for my dog in this story: Rembrandt, Ashford, Comfort, Bentley, Odin, Hauser and Dante. Other names suggested included Murphy, Duncan, Jesse, Nash, Mickey, Boone, Jeb, Sally, Riley, Chester, Simon, Toby and Harve. A couple of names suggested that seemed unusual to me were Trot and Drift or Drifter. Turns out the person who suggested Trot had a dog named Trot. 

Decisions, Decisions
So now I have all these great names and I'm still undecided on the name that best fits my fictional dog. I've been playing around with Asher, one of Jacob's sons in the Bible. So what do you think? When you read through the names, did one of them seem to fit the composite dog above? 

Giveaway News
Remember, I've got a giveaway going to celebrate Summer of Joy getting dressed up in a new cover and about to be available in print again. The prizes are fun things Jocie, my young character in the Heart of Hollyhill stories, might have picked out. You can see the details on my website news & events page. I'll also be picking two winners of winner's choice of one of my books in an extra drawing from those of you who comment here. Each comment on a new post gets you another entry in that drawing. Winners in the USA or Canada will have the choice of a paper book or an e-book. International readers can win the e-book. Jocie's also giving a book away on her blog, Heart of Hollyhill blog. And if that's not enough chances to win, you can sign up on Goodreads to maybe win one of five copies being given away. 

Thanks for reading. And remember what Groucho Marx once said. "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a do, it's too dark to read."

Surprises, Parties and Chocolate Cakes

"Let's face it, a nice, creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me." ~Audrey Hepburn

Let's face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me.
Audrey Hepburn
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/chocolate_cake.html#FS468PmEH8F8rtSo.99

Let's face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me.
Audrey Hepburn
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/chocolate_cake.html#FS468PmEH8F8rtSo.99

I've got some serious chocolate lovers among my grandkids. I think they may have taken after their grandmother! My sister has a granddaughter who won't eat chocolate and everytime I hear that I am amazed afresh and think, surely, she just hasn't tried it yet. lol

This chocolate cake looks like it could be my dog, Oscar's cake, doesn't it? Of course, they say chocolate is poisonous to dogs. Do you think it's possible that dogs love us so much they just wanted to come up with a reason to let us have all the chocolate? But the cake was my granddaughter's request and her mother was game to give it a try and did a great job. No, those aren't real dog biscuits. They were some kind of dog biscuit shaped cookies. A great cake anyway. 

It was fun reading all the birthday stories you all sent me or left in comments here. (If you haven't entered the giveaway contest yet, you have five more days to throw your name in the hat. Drawing is next Monday night at midnight EST. Details about the contest are on my website's News and Events Page.) Certain trends showed up in your stories. You like cake - especially chocolate cake. Surprise parties made for memorable birthdays. You loved feeling special on your birthday. And family makes the memories sweeter.

Mary left this in a comment on one of the birthday story posts, but in case you didn't read the comments, here's her story.

"Birthdays are always special in our family - favorite cake & meal & treat. I always had a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, roast chicken & home-made marshmallows - not quite in that order. The birthday person also gets out of chores. After dinner you just walk away from the table. Growing up that was almost the best part of the whole day."

Those home-made marshmallows sound interesting, Mary. I did something like that with my kids too. I still cook their favorite meals and desserts if they can make it home for their birthdays. And I like the idea of the birthday person getting out of chores. Seems that's harder to work out for us older folks. If you could, what chore would you most want to get out of?

Maxie shared this last story about a treasured surprise party.

 I have been blessed with 12 grandkids and now 19 great-grands. How great!  Very well blessed. …  My favorite Birthday would be my 75th. It was also my first ever Surprise Party. My granddaughter and daughter had the house (big) decorated prettier than I've ever seen. This daughter also made my BD cake. So good!  Real fudgey. She got everyone to bring one of my favorite desserts and foods they had ever known me to love. Was absolutely Fantastic." 

  
Birthdays are a great time to feel that extra love and to give that extra love too. Have you ever thrown a surprise party for anyone? Were you ever surprised by a party yourself? 

 Thanks for reading.

Life is Better with a Dog Named Oscar

Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them, filling an emptiness we don't even know we have. ~Thorn Jones

Some of you have been asking about how my dog, Oscar, is doing. About a month ago, one of the men working on a room remodel here at the house ran over Oscar. He was parked beside the house in the field and we don't know if Oscar was under his truck or just running along beside him. At any rate, one of the wheels must have run over his leg and broke both bones. 

That was a bad day for me. I was sitting with Mom who was having one of her more unsettled days when I got the call from my husband reporting Oscar had been hurt. My husband was getting his eyes examined and couldn't go home right away. I couldn't leave Mom alone and so couldn't go home to see about my dog friend. A couple of hours passed before my husband finally got home and reported Oscar's leg was broken. I still couldn't leave Mom's, but a neighbor came over to help load Oscar in the van for a trip to the vet. They kept him in the doggie hospital and did surgery on his leg the next day. 

Dog surgery is not cheap, but Oscar is my dog. Dog lovers will understand what I mean when I say he's my dog. He's been my dog since my husband brought him home about four years ago. I had another dog at the time. A chocolate lab that was my dog too, but he was also an independent character who although he'd been neutered had not lost all his romantic desires. Female dogs from around the neighborhood loved Dub and came to get him from time to time to take him off to get in trouble. (Honest, it was never Dub's fault! Or so he would have me believe.) I had to bail him out of doggie jail once and did so gladly. 

For some reason, my husband decided I needed another dog. I resisted. He went shopping on the internet for dogs. Free dogs. He would find one and then have me come look at the dog's picture. I resisted. I had my dog, Dub. I was happy with that. But then he pulled up Oscar's picture. Someone had dropped Oscar in Lexington near a horse farm and a young couple had given him a home. They loved him, but when spring came they were going to have to travel around in their job of training horses. So they advertised for a new home for Oscar. That was the name they gave him. For some reason his sweet face and that name broke down my resistance. A phone call or two later and my husband went to get Oscar and bring him to his new home. From the very first day, he was my dog. Sometimes it just works that way. We thought he was grown. He weighed about sixty pounds. We were very wrong. He kept growing. Now he's over one hundred pounds - bigger even than my old dog, Dub, was. 

Dub passed on one sad summer day a little while after we got Oscar. So it turned out to be a good thing that I stopped resisting and let Oscar join our family. He's a very good dog. He doesn't roll in cow piles or want to drag various dead animal parts home to the yard. Dub was very good at that, but not enjoying the special aroma of those two things is an important good dog attribute out here on the farm. Just ask my neighbors, whose St. Bernard loves to decorate her neck ruff with aromatic cow piles.

Oscar is not a swimmer in spite of obviously having lab in his mix. He will wade a bit when it's very hot. He looks ferocious when he's barking at strangers, but if they will notice, he's usually wagging his tail at the same time. I used to have a dog in the house, a sweet cockerspaniel. I decided Oscar with his good dog manners, would make a wonderful house dog and invited him in. He refused. He did not want to cross the threshold. In fact, he did not want to so determinedly that he sat down like a mule and wouldn't budge. I gave up after a few tries although I continued to hold the door open now and again to invite him in. He always ran the other direction. 

But after his surgery, he was ordered kept in confinement with leash walking only for six weeks. I bought him a bed and we gently pushed him into the house when we brought him home from the doggie hospital. I had to put a trail of scatter rugs across my hardwood floor to get him to walk to the front door to go out. He still won't venture out of the back hallway into the kitchen or living room. He does come down the hallway into my office now to keep me company when I'm working. 

For two weeks I only took him on short walks, but for the last couple of weeks, he's been going on the full walks with me. On leash. He's never tried to run away from me. He's been a model dog. So what if bone shards decorate my office floor and his panting drips all over the rug after we walk. There is also Oscar, inside keeping me company. Sometimes good things come from bad. I'm not sure what will happen after he is released to run free again, but I hope he will still be willing to come inside and keep me company. A dog makes a wonderful writing friend. Especially a good dog like Oscar.

One of the most enduring friendships in history - dogs and their people, people and their dogs. ~Terry Kay

Have you had a good dog in your life?

Good Dog - Coal

                        

 "It came to me that every time I lose a dog they take a piece of my heart with them. And every new dog who comes into my life gifts me with a piece of their heart. If I live long enough, all the components of my heart will be dog, and I will become as generous and loving as they are." --Unknown

Most of you know that I'm a dog person. I got the dog hunger as a kid and have never been without a dog, sometimes two or three, since I got my first one way back when. That's a lot of dogs to take a piece of my heart with them when they passed on. The last few years my dog friends have increased to not only my own dogs, but the neighbor dogs who like to walk with me and my "granddogs," my children's dogs. That means I get to enjoy the fun of these dogs becoming part of the family and them coming home to visit with my children. It also means I have to grieve along with them when they lose one of their four-legged friends. And today, we're missing Coal. 

Coal came into my son's family after they lost Hank, a dog my daughter-in-law had for years before she and my son married. Hank lived to the grand age, for a dog, of 17, but finally he gave up the fight. They got Coal from a rescue place four years ago. He was supposed to be part Australian Shepherd and not get over fifty pounds. But he was solid black except for a spot of white on his chest and he outgrew their predictions by a lot. The kids named him Charcoal because of that black fur. 

He went through his puppy stages but from the beginning, it was obvious he was a  very intelligent dog. He would sometimes herd my grandkids up on the couch if he thought they were straying away too far. He was a tremendous watchdog who could make even the most courageous door to door salesman back up. He didn't like men and for a long time he had to be banished to the backyard if either grandfather came to visit. But he loved me from the start. I'd have to pet Coal when I went in the house before I could even give the grandkids a hug. He wasn't allowed to jump up on people, but you know how grandmas are. He'd jump up on me and put his paws on my shoulder. I think he was trying to teach me to dance, but I've always had two left feet. 

He naturally enough hung around under the baby's highchair. She naturally enough shared her food with him - sometimes giving him a bite of her bread or whatever and then taking a bite herself. He never tried to take it all. The second youngest girl was two when Coal became part of the family and the two of them had a very special friendship. He was her pillow while she watched cartoons. He let her dress him up as a princess although he looked very put upon in the picture that resulted. 

With the idea that he surely had a great deal of lab in him, my son threw him in the pond when he was still a pup thinking he'd enjoy the water. Coal ran out of the water and as far away as he could get from that pond. He missed the lab genes there. But you might say he was a retriever. He could leap high in the air and retrieve any unwary birds right out of the air. 

When he first got sick, that's what we thought had happened to him. That perhaps he had caught a bird, tried to eat it, and got a bone stuck in his throat. He was losing weight. I hadn't seen him for a while but when I went in to keep the kids while my daughter-in-law took Coal to the vet, my heart sank. He looked so sick, but he still came to me and jumped up for his hug. The news at the vet's was worse than anything we could have imagined. Cancer of the spleen with the tumor already so big that it was pushing up into his chest area. 

So Coal came home to die. And he had a few more good weeks with the kids and his beloved family. He kept trying to catch those birds. He kept sitting with the girls as they watched their cartoons. Last week, he even made one of his famous escapes out the front door to run around the neighborhood with the older kids chasing him. He kept being Coal. 

Two days ago he quit eating. Last night he went out into the backyard and lay down and didn't get back up. He turned four years old this week. He was a very good dog. 

"...a good dog is one of the best things of all to be." Dean Koontz

My Dog, Honeysuckle Jody

It's not a great picture, but here I am with my cockerspaniel, Jody. He was a registered dog and to fancy up his name a little I registered him as Honeysuckle Jody. The picture is old and I've definitely got a windblown look, but Jody's curly ears are lying down nicely. This was taken twenty-five or so years ago. I was needing some - or at least I hoped I might need some - publicity type photos after my first books were published. Can't say that I ever did.

That was way before Facebook and the internet gave anybody a chance to share pictures with anybody. But I'm glad I took this one and a couple more with Jody. He was a good dog. And he was the dog that I wrote about in the story that is part of the book, The Dog Next Door edited by Callie Smith Grant. Its release date is June 1, but it looks like it's already available for shipping on Amazon. 

I like dog stories, so I'm sure I'm going to enjoy reading the other writers' stories in the book. My story is titled "A Gift of Love," and it's about when my husband gave me Jody for my birthday. He sometimes has a hard time getting me gifts that I really like. I mean the man gave me a bright pink snuggie a couple of years ago and a floor polisher one year. I have to admit that sometimes I'm not the best gift receiver, but at the time I got the floor polisher I was still young and halfway believed in Santa Claus. :-) Besides that, I lived in an old farm house with linoleum that had black spots from wear. So it's hard to be enthusiastic about a floor polisher that obviously was not cheap. Like money would have bought me a really pretty sweater, I'm sure. So for years after the floor polisher disaster, he tried to get me something I would REALLY love for my birthday or Christmas. And he did with this dog, Jody. The best gift ever. If you get the book and read my story you'll know - as they say - the rest of the story.

Jody was my dog from the beginning. He loved all the family, but he was my dog. He was about as big as my hand when we got him and while I cooked or worked at the kitchen counter, he would sleep on my foot. The only trick he ever learned was jumping up to catch popcorn in his mouth. He loved popcorn. And he liked terrapins. When we took walks, he would sniff out terrapins - that's the only animal he could catch - and carry them all the way back to the house. He was always at the door to enthusiastically greet me every time I came home. And he hated the UPS man. What is it about UPS trucks that dogs don't like? He would get cockleburrs caught in the long hair on his ears but was patient as I worked them out. And like all dogs, he got old much too quickly. Jody's been gone a long time. I've fallen in love with a half dozen dogs since him, but Jody was special. A bundle of pure love who looked at me as if I was the most wonderful person in the world. He still sometimes runs through my mind when I go for a walk, especially when I come across a terrapin.

Thanks for reading. I'll tell you about the Clear Creek Writer's workshop on Wednesday, but Sundays this month have been devoted to dogs. Next Sunday come read a very special interview with Suzanne Woods Fisher as she tells us about raising guide dogs and also about her Amish books. I know you'll enjoy learning more about her, her books, and her dogs. Plus if you leave a comment, you'll have the chance to win one of her books. You're welcome to share my blog posts with any friends you think might enjoy my letters from down here on the farm. 

"Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole." Roger Caras

A Dog Story Book

Here's the cover I promised to post Sunday about the book of dog stories, The Dog Next Door. I know. It's Monday and not Sunday. But I was at my daughter's house last night and didn't have time to get on the computer. And I was too busy enjoying all the writers and books at the S.C. Book Festival this weekend to get it on earlier. If you live in the area or anywhere within reasonable driving distance - and you love books - you should consider a trip to Columbia, SC when they have their book festival next year. They always draw in some big names along with lots of other regional and national writers who maybe aren't on the NY Times Bestseller list, but who write great books. There is so much variety. Fiction of lots of genres, history, bestsellers, gardening & cooking books, kids books and etc. I'll share some more about the fun I had in Wednesday's blog.  But now back to the dogs.

I hadn't written a short piece in years. Maybe one for a local magazine fifteen years or more ago. I love the book form. I like writing novels. But when I got the e-mail asking if I had a dog story I wanted to tell, I thought why not see if I could still think short. I started out writing short pieces for church magazines and dreaming of publishing stories in Redbook or Good Housekeeping. At that time those magazines published several short stories every month. What happened to all the people who used to like reading short stories? I don't know, but whatever it was, the market for short stories dried up before any of those editors saw the gold in my stories. Probably because I didn't have any gold in those stories. To make a long story short - which I am not very good at - the market dried up for short stories and I quit writing short pieces at about the same time. I don't think those two things had any sort of connection. LOL

But I love dogs and I knew Callie Smith Grant, who was compiling this book. Plus I had a story about a dog that I thought might work. Actually, as many dogs as I've had, I should have enough stories about dogs to fill a book all by myself, but I decided to pick this one story about my cockerspaniel, Jody. I'm not going to tell you the story here, but it is a heart tugger. Jody was a wonderful dog, but this is more about him being a gift to me than about the dog he turned out to be. Maybe next Sunday, I'll just tell you about the kind of dog he was and post a picture of him. That sounds like fun. I must be on a dog kick. That's going to hold true until the end of the month. On Sunday May 29, I'm going to be posting Suzanne Woods Fisher's interview about her and her dogs. Tell your friends about that one.

Here's the blurb for The Dog Next Door. If you like dogs, I hope you'll check it out when it releases in June.

Dogs are truly one of God's finest creatures, a marvelous gift for us humans. In the perfect follow-up to A Prince among Dogs, Callie Smith Grant compiles a delightful collection of true stories that celebrate the dogs in our lives. These stories will touch our hearts, renew our spirits, and show us how God made these wonderful creatures for unique purposes.

Readers will love these uplifting glimpses into the lives of ordinary and extraordinary dogs and the people who love them. The stories are warm, captivating, and ideal for a good curl-up-and-read or a perfect gift for any dog lover.

You can click on the Table of Contents on the book on its Amazon page and see the other writers who have written a story or stories about their dogs. One of my writing friends, Virginia Smith, has the lead off story. I haven't gotten a copy yet so haven't been able to read any of the stories, but I'm sure they will be fun/inspiring/touching/all of the above.

Thanks for reading. Talk to you Wednesday. Until then be sure to smile at a writer. Or maybe a dog. :-) 

My Walking Dogs

"The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too." (Samuel Butler)

Those of you who have been reading my on-line journal know I've been a dog lover even longer than I've been a writer. And that's a long time, since I started scribbling words in a notebook and writing my first novel when I was around ten. But I already loved dogs before then. I'm going to be writing about the first dog that stole my heart on Sunday's blog. That dog and his story and mine are going to be part of an anthology of dog stories called The Dog Next Door edited by Callie Smith Grant. Check back Sunday to find out more about the book and my story then.

But these two beauties are my dogs now. Oscar and Dub. They're sitting here waiting for me to make my way up the cliff path. I had stopped to look at a flower or the owl nest or something. It's easy to see they were happy to take a rest break. I have another little mutt named Lucy, but she's got beagle hound in her and she's off hunting all the time when we're walking. She'll come around to check in now and again while we're walking as long as Roxie, the big old St. Bernard from across the road isn't walking with me. If Roxie's along - and Roxie loves to walk with me - Lucy stays way back and only sneaks up for an ear ruffle when she catches Roxie not looking. When I get a new dog, the only think I want to make sure of is that it's a walking dog, but since most all dogs like to walk, that doesn't narrow the field much. 

Oscar, the black lab mix, is a great walking dog right now. He stays pretty close to me and if he runs on ahead, he always comes back to make sure I'm still coming. Dub, a registered chocolate lab, used to be a good walking dog, but he's getting old. He can't keep up any more. But he goes even though sometimes he figures out my route and just waits at the halfway point. It's the saddest thing to have a walking dog that gets too old to walk. I used to have a cockerspaniel who loved to walk with me. It about broke my heart the day Jody sat down on the path and just looked at me as if to say, "I can't do this anymore." 

But that's part of dog ownership. Dogs don't live as long as people. They drive us crazy while they're puppies - chewing on our shoes or anything that sits still, barking at invisible squirrels, throwing up in our cars or worse. But then they grow old much too quickly and we see them through as old dogs with pills hidden in cheese balls, arthritis in their hips and gray hair on their muzzles. But they're worth it. They bring joy and fun and then they pass the baton on to the next dog in your life. I've had many from that first dog, Inky, to Oscar now. Good dogs who have made my life richer. And walked miles and miles with me.

"Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole." Roger Caras

Hope life is good to you this week and that a dog somewhere is making you smile. Oh yeah, and if you're in the Columbia, SC area, I'll be at the Book Festival there this weekend. They have a wonderful program there with panels and presentations all day Saturday and Sunday with extra stuff going on for the kids. If you love books and hearing writers talk about their books and writing, then check it out at http://www.scbookfestival.org/.

A Dog Named Oscar

I forgot to let you know if I was April fooling you about my new dog. I wasn't. I do have a new dog named Oscar. He's a very nice dog. Part lab and who knows what else. He was a stray who found a loving home at a horse barn, but the people who welcomed him there weren't able to keep him since they follow the horses during racing season. So Darrell, who had been hunting a dog for me ever since I didn't get the pup at Christmas, came across him on the internet and for some reason this time I said why not? I think it was his name that got me. Plus he reminded me of Max, a black lab I had several years ago. Max has gone on to doggie heaven, but he was one of the nicest dogs I've owned. Oscar promises to be the same. I've had so many good dogs. Most of them I got when they were puppies. But not Dub, my chocolate lab. He was about a year old when we got him. And now not Oscar who is about ten months old.

As I've shared with you before, I'm a dog lover. I remember when I was about ten or eleven I told everybody I was going to be a recluse who had a dozen dogs. Well, that didn't happen! Thank goodness. I don't think I'd do the recluse thing well. And a dozen dogs might be a few too many to have to take to the vet and keep in dog food. But back when I was a very shy little girl I could imagine living in a cabin on a mountain somewhere spending all my time writing. Oh yeah, and feeding and walking all those dogs, I suppose.

While some little girls yearn for a pony, I wanted a dog. My own dog. Wilson Rawls gave words to the feeling I had in his wonderful book Where the Red Fern Grows when he wrote about his character having the dog hunger. That really rang a chord with me even though I didn't read the book until I was an adult. Still, I knew exactly what he meant about his young character having the hunger to have a dog because that was the very feeling that had eaten at my insides when I was a kid.

I just went out on the net trying to find the publication date for that book and came across some interesting information about Rawls. His story was first published in 1961 as a three part series in The Saturday Evening Post. I never did find out when it was first published in book form. The re-issued book from Yearling still has a number one Amazon ranking for books for kids about dogs. But the really interesting or perhaps sad information I came across was that Rawls had always dreamed of being a writer but after he wrote something he would lock it up in a trunk so no one else could see it. Then when he was in his forties he got married for the first time, thought he needed to be more responsible and burned all his stories. His wife disagreed with what he'd done and encouraged him to keep writing. Out of that encouragement we got a story that still touches hearts today. But you have to wonder about those stories he burned.

Well, I went off chasing rabbits tonight for sure. But back to Oscar, I think he's going to be my next very good dog. And he'll help keep that dog hunger of mine satisfied.

The Joys of the Electronic Age and Booksignings

Hi, everybody. Thanks for stopping by. But this post is late since my phone lost its dial tone all weekend. The repairman just called a few minutes ago to say our phone was working again. Somebody dug a fencepost hole and cut the cable. I don't know who was fencing, but it wasn't us. Anyway, out here in the sticks where those of the slower electronic age reside, a person can’t reach out to talk to people on the other side of the country without that nice little hum in your ear when you pick up the phone or that melodious growl in your modem when you hit the connect button on your computer. Now and again we talk about checking into satellite internet, but I’m the one dragging my feet, thinking it’s just too much trouble to switch over. I’m the kind of person telephone companies, etc. love because I just don’t want to go through the hassle of changing it all over to a new company. I’m loyal as a puppy dog or maybe I should say as an old dog that doesn’t want to bother learning new tricks.

Of course land lines don’t seem quite as vital to most people as they used to be because we all have cell phones these days or so it seems from the way everybody at the grocery store has a phone chatting away as he or she picks up some groceries. Or how half the people who come through a stoplight have telephones pressed against their ears. We are a nation connected. And some can connect to the web on their cell phones, but not me. I figure I’ll hang back on that modern advance a bit longer. Besides I don’t have anything earth-shaking to say. Certainly nothing that you can’t wait a few more hours to read. I put all those kind of words (the kind you have to read right away) into my books. At least I’d like to have those kinds of words in my books.

Virginia Smith and I had our booksigning at JosephBeth Booksellers in Lexington on Thursday night. Thank you to all my friends who came by. And Ginny’s friends too. We didn’t do a reading as we had planned because somehow the contact at the store thought we weren’t speaking and so we ended up just talking to everybody one on one. Ginny kept telling folks I was going to entertain by dancing the two-step or soft shoe or something. That would have had people laughing, but I’m not sure about entertained.

I missed out on the dancing gene, although I used to have a dog that would dance when he came to greet me whenever I’d come home. I have done a few doggie dance steps with him just to encourage him. Tate’s passed on to dance in doggie heaven now. He’d also smile, but the dancing was what everybody liked to see him do the most. Or maybe they just liked to see me doing those dog steps. Anyway, there weren’t any dogs dancing at JosephBeth’s so neither did I. Laughing – that we did do. Even signed a few copies of The Outsider, Orchard of Hope, and Summer of Joy too. Ginny’s book, The Taste of Murder, is hot off the press, just released last week. To her delight, she’s already spotted it in Wal-Mart. She set the book in Owensboro, KY where they have the great barbecue. At least I think that’s what I overheard her telling people. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. But she does have a newly designed website, http://www.virginiasmith.org/ where you can check out all her books. She says she posted a picture of us on there too, but I haven’t had the nerve to go look at it yet.

Also several local papers in Kentucky picked up the article Don White, who used to be the editor of our local paper, wrote about me. Don's writing human interest pieces now about people he meets who have some kind of Kentucky connection. Believe me, he's written about a lot more interesting people than me. You can check his stories out at www.thekytraveler.com. I saw the article about me that was in the Danville Advocate, but he says maybe twelve or thirteen papers across the state picked it up. Not the local paper here in Anderson County. I think they’re tired of printing articles about me. They did a piece on me back in February when Summer of Joy came out.

I never could get them to do the article about my Hollyhill books that I pitched to them. Since I based so much of Hollyhill on my local town, Lawrenceburg, I thought it would be fun to really zero in on that as a hook, but the newspaper reporter wasn’t a long time Lawrenceburg resident and he just didn’t see the appeal to that. I still think it would be a fun article. “Lawrenceburg Stars in Author’s Hollyhill Stories.” Or something along those lines. Oh well. Maybe they were afraid I'd made everybody in Lawrenceburg sound like they were from Jupiter like Wes. If you haven't read my Hollyhill books you won't know what in the world (or Jupiter) I'm talking about. Sorry, you'll just have to read the books to find out.

And now the Shakers are the stars in my new books. I’m knee deep in making a few changes to keep my editor happy with my new Shaker book, The Believer. Nothing major, thank goodness. Just a tweak here and there. And I got the proof of the final cover last week. It’s sort of like the last one with the girl and guy in the front with some Shaker buildings in behind. I like it. I’ll post it on my website as soon as I know a publication date. I’m thinking next summer, but I don’t know that for sure yet. Guess I should ask. Sometimes I just expect to get all the info without ever asking.

The next week is a busy one. Aren’t they all anymore? And can you believe it’s almost November? You realize what month comes after November. I’d better be marking off some time on my calendar to go shopping for all those grandbabies. But this week the Patriots are having their Homecoming on Friday and Saturday nights. That’s always fun. If you’re in the area, check out their website, http://www.patriotquartet.com for more details. And then I’ve been telling people I’m going to be in Indiana on Saturday (a booksigning at Heaven Help Us Bookstore in New Albany at 11:30 a.m.), West Virginia on Sunday (the baby dedication day for the twins at my son’s church), and Tennessee on Monday (a trip to the mountains with Darrell’s brothers and sister and spouses – we’ll have a blast.) Actually I’m not usually so busy. But this all sounds like fun. Hope all your busiest days are fun. And if they are tell us about them. I enjoy reading your comments and I like getting e-mails from you readers. You can contact me privately from my web page if you want.

Oh yeah, and I’ll be drawing for the winner of my Hollyhill books on Halloween day. Guess it’ll be a trick or treat time. So if you haven’t signed up for the drawing, send me an e-mail in the next couple of weeks. I have a dial tone now so I'll get your messages. Thank goodness. I was worried I was going to have to call that machine woman at the telephone company again. You know, the one with the soft voice that says please say yes or no in answer to all my questions. Of course, she does usually ask easy questions. Yes? Or no?