“Lots of people talk to animals...Not very many listen though...that's the problem.”

― Benjamin Hoff, The Tao Of Pooh

Pooh is spot on (as he often is): There’s a lot we can learn from our pets. And I’m not only talking about eternal devotion, unconditional love, and all the other amazing universal qualities of man’s best buds. But rather, a host of qualities specific to each, which can help shape us into better human beings. Here are some examples from the dogs that’ve impacted my life.

Look how cute...I mean, the dog, not me.
Obviously.

Mandy was my first dog, a Springer Spaniel, but far more than that. She was one of my first memories – at the age of three I got to pick her out of the litter. I think I picked her because she was the runt, likely moving a bit slower than the other wiggly pups and therefore, easier for my toddler self to latch on to. We were the stereotypical boy/dog pair: hours hiking in the New Mexico forests, swimming in the southwestern lakes, chasing lizards (she always managed to get them, I didn’t), and doing the “bite for me, bite for her” during meals. I learned a lot from Mandy. But the thing that I will always remember – the thing that is making me tear up right now – is when, at the cancer-ridden age of 17, we took her for one last, slow walk at a local picnic area. Despite the pain she must’ve felt moving, that little tailless butt refused to stop wagging. I try, and often fail, to mimic this gusto for life.

You may address her as Your Highness

Belle is one of the brother/sister Australian Shepherd/Border Collie pair that my family rescued from the pound after recovering from the loss of Mandy. Clocking in at under 25 pounds, she rules every dog pack she’s ever been a part of. Don’t be misled: she’s not mean or snappy or peeing over everything. She just knows she’s in charge…and somehow, so do all the other dogs. I admire this confidence and how naturally it pours from her. I’m not saying that I come anywhere close to her level, but I’d like to feel that comfortable in the areas where I excel.

Cheese? I like cheese.

Beau is the other half of the brother/sister pair. As they say, “He’s not the smartest dog at the park.” But, boy, is he a sweetheart. When you’re giving him a command, you can just see how hard he’s trying to figure out what to do. He really, really wants to be a good dog – it’s just not quite connecting. When you see him like that, no matter how insubordinate he’s being, it’s impossible to be angry. So Beau’s lesson to me is that if I attempt something (for example, writing a book or another one or a third) and don’t succeed in getting published, I should understand that most other people won’t judge me for wasting my time, but will commend me for trying to be a good dog – I mean, a good author.

Who farted?

As many of you remember, Bailey is one of my lab/golden retriever mutts (aka The Red Devils). He’s taught me more than just not to eat rocks – no matter how bored I am.  Though if I did, I could get in international notoriety (see last year’s pet post for that gut wrenching story). Another thing he’s taught me is to enjoy the simple surprises in life. Allow me to explain: every so often Bailey will be sprawled on the floor when he lets a loud one rip. Immediately, he’ll stare at his butt, ears perked, and his nose goes a million miles per minute. It’s as if he can’t believe that came out of him. See, the simple surprises are the special whiffs of life that make it worthwhile.

Love me.

Cody is our other Red Devil. This dog is the most loving dog of all time. Seriously, I think he might’ve been a hippy-dog in a previous life. He just wants everyone to get along. Whenever Cody is around dogs who are starting to get into a fight, he’ll dash over, jump into the middle, break them up, and roll onto his back – like he’s saying, “Everyone just sniff me. It’s a win-win-win.” It’s a brave, selfless, and stupid act. With this sort of effort, Cody is teaching me that love is not passive, but active and dangerous.

So what kind of lessons do your pets teach you when you're listening?

Another pic of Cody...just because it's awesome!

Like Talia, the story of my pet, Ivan, is inextricably linked with my writing. Check out Talia's post if you haven't already. Huckleberry came into the picture, ostensibly, as "research" in part. I like that strategy. I can't help but imagine all the requests I could make to my husband in the name of writing:

• "My character's cousin went to Hawaii once and it might come up in this scene I'm thinking about drafting, so we should probably get out to Maui soon. You know. For research."
• "I'm considering writing a car chase so a sports car purchase might be in order so I can write about the experience authentically. Perhaps a black convertible Porsche? You know. For research."
• "There are no grocery stores or dirty laundry piles in the post-apocalypse and I need to make sure I'm living like my characters, so.... I can't do it. You know. For research."

I'm definitely going to try that approach. Thanks for the tip, Talia ; )

No, Ivan the Great did not come in the name of research. There are no cats in UNDER THE NEVER SKY, sadly. Ivan happens to be my "I got published" gift to myself. I have a dog, Lola, but a cat seemed so quintessentially writerly.

He came along a few months after the book deal. As soon as the ink was dry, I went in search of a cat to sit on my desk while I wrote. Now I can't remember what it was like to work without my little (okay, not so little) companion snoozing nearby. For more on Ivan, head over here.

Here are a few shots of Ivan,  as he grows up on my desk.

He was only a few weeks old here, and already helping out with the writing.

Getting a little bigger here. You can see that space is running out.

I had to relocate him to the left of the computer because he became too big.

I remember the day I started Spies and Prejudice.  It was a Saturday morning in June 2009.  I had a seed of an idea that formed earlier in the week, and decided to try writing a few pages to see where it went.


I made it as far as the second chapter before the dog showed up. At first, she showed up in exposition, as Berry described the detached condo where she and her dad lived:


                           "Every house is painted exactly the same salmon pink and dominated
                           by a two-car garage in front. Perfect cover. With two bedrooms and two
                           baths, our house is just big enough for Dad and me, not quite big enough
                           for Little Lulu, our Saint Bernard."

I had never owned a Saint Bernard, but as soon as I wrote this passage, I started researching them. I found a breeder about two hours away that had a litter of puppies. Our Akita, Duke, had died in his sleep back in February, and while I thought we would wait a few more months to get another dog, I was seized with longing.

I walked into the living room where my real life love interest was watching a baseball game on T.V.

"Honey?" I asked, peeking over the back of the couch. "Is it okay if buy something?"

"What do you want to buy?" A fair question.

I took a breath. "A puppy."

To his credit, he didn't flinch. "What kind of puppy?"

"A Saint Bernard?"

He looked at me skeptically. "Do you know how messy a Saint Bernard is?"

I shook my head, my excitement turning to panic. "There is a litter of puppies in Corning."

He didn't say no. To this day, I'm not sure he said yes exactly. But he definitely didn't say no.

And so, less than 24 hours later, I found myself driving in my daughter's SUV, armed with a kennel in the back and a blank checkbook, to "look at" the puppies.

And that's when I met Huckleberry.  He had polka dots on his legs and face, and he kept coming over and setting his chin on my arm or leg.  He picked us.  He slept all the way home.

He loves the days when I sit on one end of the couch and write.  He usually curls up in the opposite corner.  And every scene in Spies with Lulu has a little bit of Huckleberry on the page:

                    "In the morning Tanner is gone.  Lulu is curled up on the couch where
                    he sat last night, her head resting on a blanket folded into a neat square.
                    I scratch the soft spot behind Lu's ears, but she doesn't lift her head.

                    'Trust me Lu, he's not worth pining over.'  Not that I can't relate.  I spent
                    most of the night trying to figure out how things got so far with Tanner
                    that he could hurt me so easily.

                    I curl up on the other side of the blanket and rest my head next to Lulu's.
                   There's a faint hint of cinnamon that's only tolerable because it's overpowered
                   by Saint Bernard breath."


In the three years since we got Huckleberry, I finished writing my first novel all the way through.  And my second.  And my third.  I went to my first conference, met the Muses, got an agent, sold a book, and in September, my first book will be out. 

Coincidence?  I don't think so.  I attribute it all to the Saint Bernard curled up on the corner of the couch (and occasionally in my lap).

I used to be a cat person.  So much of a cat person that I collected stuffed cats, cat figurines, wore t-shirts with cute kittens on them, pretended to be a cat when I curled up to sleep...

I was eight at the time.

We always had cats.  Cortez was my parent's old Siamese who moved to California from Houston, Texas in a crate that got sent (accidentally) to Arcadia instead of Arcata.  If you know the geography of California, you know there's a huge difference there.  By the time I remember him, he was old and tired.  I remember playing a game with my first grade best friend where we picked him up from where he slept in front of the heater and put him down anywhere else in our great big drafty house, just to watch him run back to the heater.  Poor, long suffering animal.

When Cortez died, we got another Siamese.  My sister named him Cotton.  He was the last male cat we  ever had because he roamed.  And we lived too close to the highway.  My mother got a phone call the day after he disappeared and walked out of the house with an empty shoebox.  She told us not to look when she came back.  But I did.  I hid in the living room and watched her trudge back up the hill from the highway, one blue-point paw hanging limply out of the box.  In GILT, my main character, Kitty, refrains from watching something horrifying from her window - I wish that I, too, hadn't looked.

Midnight was my cat.  She was (surprise!) black.  My sister got a dachsund.  Midnight a fierce hunter, the type of cat who showed her love by bringing trophies into the house and leaving them next to me on the couch.  She, too, disappeared, and despite a concerted effort on my part (though I never went down to the highway) was never found.

My last cat was another Siamese mix, who came to live with us when I was eleven.  Shasta had the crooked tail, but not the crossed eyes, and she loved to "talk".  I swore I could understand what she was saying.    I made up stories about her and regaled my friends with them.  During classtime.  Shasta was a hunter, too, but couldn't catch anything that hadn't already been run over in the driveway.  And she taught us never to leave food on the counter overnight.  The day before Thanksgiving, she ate a hole out of the center of two (yes, two) pumpkin pies.  And at Easter she ate the eyes off of the elaborate bunny-shaped cake I had made all by myself.  She lived nineteen years, and finally died in my mother's arms while I was far away in England.

I will probably never have another cat.  My husband is allergic (and is decidedly not a cat person, to boot).   But I still love them.  The studied indifference.  The ability to fall asleep in the most unlikely and uncomfortable-looking positions.  The soft fur and the purr that rumbles unbidden when they're stroked in just the right place.

But of course, I love my dog.  I can't imagine life without him, how he follows me to wherever I'm working.  How he barks me awake (at 5:30).  And he wouldn't tolerate a cat in the house anymore than my husband would.  So for now, I just enjoy other people's cats.  And I never have to empty a litterbox.

This week's theme is "pets."  I'm going to get that in just a bit, but first...

The view of the approaching smoke from my backyard.

It's been a difficult start to summer.  Always in an educationally oriented career, summer has always been a time of transition, down time, and catch up.  I'm sure it's an enviable three months to those with a regular twelve month timeline.  Living in Colorado usually makes summer even more special.  Everyone is always outside enjoying the cool summer temperatures and gorgeous mountain views. Hiking. Cooking. Spending time with neighbors.  Tourist from all over the world flock to Fort Collins in the summer.

You probably know, however, this Colorado summer is different.

Combining record setting temperatures with terrible drought, wild fires are burning all over my beautiful home state. The High Park fire came within five miles of my house, burning much of the scenic Poudre Canyon that lies just north of my town of Fort Collins.  The Waldo Canyon fire is burning about two hours south, near Colorado Springs, and many friends and family have contacted me to ask if I'm safe.  They see the national news filled with horrifying images of burning houses and mountainsides.  Thankfully, I'm okay.  Although the air was clouded with smoke and ash for weeks, I have little to complain about compared with so many who have been evacuated for weeks.  Some lost everything they own.  The gorgeous scenery that so many come to view will never be the same in my lifetime.  


Summer has definitely not been normal for me or anyone else living here.  Often, one of my evacuated colleagues dropped by and together we checked out the latest aerial maps to see if his house was still standing and if the fire line held over night.  Another friend, who owns a ranch outside of town, volunteered to take her livestock trailer up behind the fire line with a list of addresses to try to find and rescue animals left behind.  Dirty, tired firefighters walk through the downtown square on a regular basis, and there are signs everywhere thanking them for their amazing service.

Cassidy, right after surgery.  Breaks your heart, right?

Although I was safe from the fire, I had some other worries.  (Remember, how I said I'd eventually get to the pet topic?)  My twelve year old lab, Cassidy, suddenly developed a red, inflamed eye.  I thought it was due to the smoke.  After all, everyone's eyes were burning.  Unfortunately, a trip to the vet resulted in emergency surgery to remove her left eye.  She had severe glaucoma and was in a great deal of pain.  I spent the next few weeks nursing a blind dog, with a big cone on her head, back to health.


Thankfully, things are looking up.  I'm happy to report that, as of today, the closest fire to me is now 100% contained.  Cassidy no longer has to wear the cone of shame, and celebrated the removal of her stitches yesterday with a doggie scoop at Walrus Ice Cream.  Maybe we're all on the mend.  I hope so.

Cassidy, eating her ice cream

In the midst of all this, I try to write book two.  However, unlike other professions, our work as writers comes from our mind.  When minds are full of other things - likes fires and sick pets- it's hard to concentrate.  Maybe your worries aren't the same as mine, but you still have them.  When striving for focus, it's hard to put aside the stress of everyday life.  Yet, somehow, the story is also the escape.  If I'm able to truly immerse myself in writing, then the rest of the world drops away.

And that's my goal for the rest of this summer.