Doggone It!

By Jeanne Adams

Are you a Dog Person or a Cat Person?

If you've ever owned a dog - or been owned by one - even if you don't have one now, you know you're ONE OF THEM.

The Dog People.

The people who carry a spare leash in the car in case they come across the neighbor's dog, loose and running toward the street. You're the one who's been known to have three or four manky, disgusting tennis balls rolling around in your van or car, as well as having spare "dog towels" in the trunk. You're the one who bought special protective covers for your car seats, or even better, a ramp so your older dog could still go for rides with you. Your car windows have that special doggy imprint...you may even have one of those bumper stickers that says I HEART My Bouvier de Flanders. (Yes, that is a dog) Or one that says, My Mutt Can Beat Up Your Purebred.

You laughed uproariously at the Pedigree Super Bowl Commercial featuring the odd pets-that-were-not-dogs.

You laugh at Frazier's dog, Eddie.

You buy your dog presents for the holidays.

Yep. Dog Person. (You Cat People are a whoooollllleeee different kettle of fish, so to speak. I'm gonna talk about your proclivities on the 19th....)

Dogs are wonderful creatures, really. Loyal. Protective. Funny. Sympathetic. Pick an adjective.

Introduce two true Dog People and they'll be happy for hours telling dog stories. It's even worse if they share a breed-specific scenario - i.e. put two Yorkie owners together and the "ooh, my Chester just..." stories go on, and on, and on. Dogs are great conversation starters. A single-guy friend of mine calls his dog, Hefty, a chick-magnet.
(While this picture isn't Hefty, it looks like him. So, you can see, Hefty is just that, and has been from puppyhood.)
Hefty turns heads wherever he goes, that's for sure.

As a reader, I love it when there's a dog in the book. I so enjoyed hearing about Pirate, the talking Jack Russell in Angie Fox's Accidental Demon Slayer. I also loved hearing about the motorcycle clubs for dogs and their owners.

Our own Donna MacMeans is featured in an anthology called Tails of Love (June , 2009), with her story Lord Hairy. (The proceeds go to a no-kill animal shelter)

In Nora Robert's Dancing on Air, the hero's dog Lucy, the black lab, stole my heart, as did Moe, the mutt in Robert's Key trilogy.

As I've gotten email about my first book, Dark and Dangerous, one of the most-mentioned characters is Shadow, the German Shepherd.

I love talking about my own dogs. (No, you wouldn't have guessed, right?) I LOL about Facebook now having a Dogbook section so your dog can Friend other people's dogs. Isn't it amazing how much time we devote to playing, walking, grooming, checking, washing, vetting and finding a place for Rover to stay when we go to the beach? (The horrible rental people at the beach don't allow dogs, you know. Terrible thing. Sigh.) Even then, we call home to be sure they're okay. For instance, my friend called me from Greece, just to check on her Golden Retriever.

From Greece. Seriously.

Some people go so far as to have their dogs as best man or woman. My hubby and I didn't do that, but it did cross my mind. And even though we didn't have the dogs in the wedding, we DID have a picture taken with them. What do you think of it? :> Its one of my favorite photos ever.

Like I said, Dog People are....crazy.

They develop clubs and games and sports for their dogs. I'm not just talking confirmation showing, or obedience trials, or field trials or agility. All that's fun, but it's kind of like what many of the breeds do when they're working, or herding, or sporting. No, these clubs are for things that have nothing to do with actual "working" dogs, like retrievers or gun dogs.

Picture a scene with me. Summer on the lake, two guys sitting at sunset drinking a beer, their very wet, happy and tired dogs by their sides. I imagine it went like this:

"You know, I don't like guns or hunting, but my dog sure likes the water." Takes a swig. "Like today. Couldn't keep him out'a the water."

"Yeah, mine too." Amiable silence. Frogs croak. "You know, Stud jumps off that dock until he's exhausted."

"Yeah, Fluffy does too. Hey how far do you think your dog jumps?"

"Really far. Farther than your dog."

"Like H*ll. We should measure it and see."


Enthusiastically, "Yeah, yeah, and Fluffy can beat Stud in Dock Diving."

And Dock Diving was born...
And Fly Ball.
And the Terrier Races.
And we won't even get into the any costume and sweaters contests, and not just at Halloween.

I've shown Dalmatians for years. I've had several champions and one Best in Show Winner. Now, with my new dog Diver, the Irish Water Spaniel, I'm going to try obedience, agility, and perhaps, Dock Diving. :>

All in my spare time, that is...hahahahahahaha.

So, the question for the day is, Cat or Dog or Both? (Louisa, I already know your answer!)
What's your favorite romance with a dog in it?
What's your favorite "dog book" from childhood?

Hey, Dog People! You'll want to tune in tonight (Monday) and tomorrow night (Tuesday) if you live in the USA, for the world famous Westminster Kennel Club Dog show. It's on the USA Network. Four groups tonight, three groups and Best In Show tomorrow night. I'll be watching to see if any of my dog-show-pals win their Breed and go to group.

Can A Novel Change A Life?

by Cassondra Murray

I’m supposed to have an article written for the blog, darn it. Tomorrow (today as you read this--Friday Sept 7, 2007) is my blog day. But I’m pacing about the house at nearly midnight, restless. I’ve splattered some watercolor paint across a piece of paper —ruined what might have been a decent painting—in my effort to focus and write about something of interest to my Bandita sisters and to you who visit our lair, but I can’t quite muster light and fun tonight.

I know why. It's almost September 11th.

9-11.

Flash back with me, six years ago today. Are you there?

In exactly four days, the WTC towers will fall. In exactly SEVEN days—NEXT Friday, I will be on my way to New York with my Search & Rescue Dog Team to search through rubble and pick up pieces of people.

We were there for only a week, but it was a week that shifted my soul.

In the aftermath our team and our dogs went through massive depression and slow healing. We spoke to group after group of people who longed to help and yet felt helpless. They thought their efforts small—giving blood, sending food, clothing, or money. But their efforts were not small.

In times like that, every person counts.

Every flag waved, every song written, every prayer said helped us as individuals, a nation, and a world, get through an awful time. In a lot of the talks we gave, a particular question came up repeatedly. They asked, “Cassondra, why did you get into K-9 Search & Rescue?”

The answer I gave—and still give--makes some people laugh out loud, but I’m betting you’ll understand.

Seventeen years ago I was a devoted reader of category romance. And in one of those category novels all those years ago, the heroine was a Search & Rescue professional. I loved her story. Somewhere in my piles and boxes of books, I still have that novel. I can’t tell you the title or the author, because I couldn’t find it on short notice—I hadn’t planned to talk about it, or SAR dogs. But even today I could tell you the heroine's story. That’s how good it was. I searched for it tonight because I wanted, right here in the Bandit lair, to thank that writer publicly.

I’d never heard of Search & Rescue until I read that book.

Her story showed me a way I could give back to my community. I love animals, so K-9 SAR became my volunteer passion for the next fifteen years. Our team trained with the best and brightest SAR professionals. We searched for drowning victims, murder victims, lost kids and old folks with Alzheimer’s disease. We were placed on standby after the bombing in Oklahoma City, earthquakes in Peru and floods in Asia. We trained and we searched as though we had a world to save. And on 9-11-01 we did.

We were ready. I was ready. Because of that category romance I’d read so many years before about a sheriff’s deputy in the southwest—a tortured heroine who was a SAR professional.

I could list a long bibliography of books which have changed my life. In truth, I think every one I read changes me somehow.

But none so much as this one. It wasn’t the biggest plot, nor the darkest nor most complex I’ve read. But it was honest and it touched me. Because of that book I made a decision--took a direction in my life that would, years later, put me on a plane with a dog draped across my lap, headed toward an awful pile of twisted steel, concrete, and people. And because of that book, every September about this time, my heart goes back to NYC and I can't think about much else. So since it's my day to blog, you, my sisters, friends, and readers, get to hear the story.

Nowadays when I say I write romance, and certain people get little smirks on their faces, I don't much care. They don’t know the half of it. They've no idea the power that lies in stories of loss and love and happy-ever-after. But I do. I know their power first hand.

Has a book ever changed your life?

Where were you this time six years ago?

And when you needed to escape it, to believe and hope again, did you, perhaps, read?

And was it, by any chance, a romance?