The True Story of Mindy Moo the Monkey Dog

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

I don’t write about animals, but with two neurotic cats and a very prissy little dog – all rescues from horrific situations – I live with them all the time.

Mindy is a small 12 pound blonde dog who is half terrier mix and half pure diva. As far as she is concerned the house and everything in it – except perhaps our bossy little tuxedo cat Squeaky Boots – belongs to her. She has as many toys as the average day care center, and no matter how often I pick up they litter the floor like a minefield.

It wasn’t always so, though. When my husband returned from his last Iraqi deployment I told him it was time to get another dog, as our beloved little poodle had died just before he shipped out. We went down to East Lake Pet Orphanage, where we get all our animals, and asked to see a little dog. We were told they only had one, and she was spoken for by a woman who was coming to pick her up in a few days.

I asked if we could just play with the little dog for a while. Knowing that my husband had just returned from a war zone, they happily agreed and put us in an empty room. When Mindy came in I knew instantly that she had to be ours. She was hesitant and darling and wearing one of the ugliest dog dresses I had ever seen. We played with her for half an hour, each minute making me feel ever more strongly that she was our dog.

When the adoptions lady – whom we had known for years – came back, I started negotiating, doing everything in my power to get this dog. She was sympathetic but firm, saying that this other woman had been talking to them for over a month about Mindy, and that there was no way we could have her.

I don’t know why, but I looked her straight in the eye and said, “When she calls and tells you she doesn’t want the dog, we do and she is ours.”

The lady was startled, but politely insisted that it wasn’t going to happen. I repeated my order again. I ended up doing it four more times, each time more forcefully, every time she told me that it wasn’t possible. Finally – just to shut me up, I’m sure – she took my cell phone number and promised to call if the other woman called and decided not to take the dog. Obviously she didn’t believe it was going to happen.

The orphanage is exactly 4.4 miles from our house. We hadn’t even gotten home when my cell phone rang. It was the adoptions lady, her voice shaky and full of awe when she told me the woman had just called and she had decided not to take Mindy. I smiled and told her we’d pick our new baby up at 10 the next morning.

Oddly enough, from then until she left several years later, the adoptions lady made sure she was never alone with me again. I heard that the incident had freaked her out quite badly and she almost believed I was a witch. I’m not, but if I did do something to change the path of the cosmos I wish I knew how I had done it. It could be a useful skill!

Mindy has an unfortunately tragic history. Someone found her stumbling along a road, so starved she was almost too weak to walk, her claws overgrown so badly that they had punctured a couple of her pads. The worst thing was, she was judged to be only about eight months old – and she was lactating. The person who found her was a good person, for they searched for her puppies, but could never find them. He took her to East Lake, which has a wonderful medical system for their orphans. They saved Mindy medically, but she was so depressed that they wouldn’t even show her for possible adoption for almost four months for fear she wasn’t going to survive.

No trace of that pathetic creature remains. Mindy is active, bossy, loving, fun – a wonderful little dog. Her only failing – if you can call it such – is that she hates big dogs. When we go walking small and medium-sized dogs rate only a bark-bark, sniff-sniff, wag-wag and then all is cool. Big dogs – she goes into stealth mode. Not a sound, but suddenly she is latched onto their throats and growling for all she is worth. The big dogs in our neighborhood know to respect her – as do their owners – and steer clear. One of the funniest sights I’ve ever seen is an enormous Harlequin Great Dane – roughly the size of a small pony – literally dragging his owner to the other side of the street the moment he laid eyes on my tiny 12 pound darling. My personal opinion of such blatant animosity is that when she was out on her own (and Heaven only knows how she got there) she saw a big dog eat her puppies. I cannot imagine anything else that could cause such pure hatred of all big dogs.

Other than that, though, there is no hatred in Mindy. She wags, she plays, she sleeps at my feet while I work, she loves my husband and me devotedly, constantly warning us of sinister postmen and marauding moths. I may not write about her in my books, but I cannot imagine life without her.

PS – Why Monkey Dog? When we pick her up to hold her, she will wrap her forelegs around our arm. On seeing this, one of my friends said, “She looks like a monkey.” It seemed only fitting that she have a name as unique as she is.

~~~

Janis Susan May Patterson is a seventh-generation Texan and a third-generation wordsmith who writes cozy mysteries as Janis Patterson, romances, horror and other things as Janis Susan May, children’s books as Janis Susan Patterson and non-fiction and scholarly works as J.S.M. Patterson.

Formerly an actress and singer, a talent agent and Supervisor of Accessioning for a bio-genetic DNA testing lab, Janis has also been editor-in-chief of two multi-magazine publishing groups as well as many other things, including an enthusiastic amateur Egyptologist. She is a founder of RWA and currently serves on a regional MWA Board.

Janis married for the first time when most of her contemporaries were becoming grandmothers. Her husband, also an Egyptophile, even proposed in a moonlit garden near the Pyramids of Giza. Janis and her husband live in Texas with an assortment of rescued furbabies.

Find Janis on Twitter @JanisSusanMay and on Facebook at Janis Susan May.

The Joys of Being Outnumbered

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

In a way I feel sort of a cheat. I don’t put animals in my books, at least not in any major roles. I do, however, have them in major roles in my life, roles so major that I sometimes feel like a minor character.

I believe firmly in adopting rescue pets, so much so that The Husband’s and my favorite charity is East Lake Pet Orphanage. Right now we have two cats – a frail little tuxedo named Squeaky Boots and a simply enormous grey/brown tabby called Chloe – and an extremely prissy little dog of uncertain antecedents whom we call Mindy Moo the Monkey Dog, for reasons too complicated to go into now.

We like to say Mindy is half terrier mix and half diva. And she can be fierce, even though she is only 12 pounds. For reasons we can only guess, she simply loathes big dogs. When loathing is not enough, she will attack. I have pulled her off the chins of more startled big dogs than I care to remember – it is a nerve-wracking experience. On the other hand, it can be effective. For several years there was a Harlequin Great Dane in our neighborhood that would drag his owner to the other side of the street whenever we happened to see each other out walking.

But Mindy is not the queen of the house. That title belongs to elderly, frail Squeaky Boots, who – without the basic tools of claws or fangs – rules the roost with an iron paw. If she wants to eat or drink something, the owner of said treat simply steps aside. Same with a prime seat. If Squeaky Boots wants, Squeaky Boots gets. Perhaps it comes from her early life – we know little about her, except that she had five homes before she was four years old, and that in the last one she had to scrap for every bite of food she got.

By contrast, Chloe is a world-class wimp. Although she is huge – 16+ pounds and when stretched out almost as long as a king-sized pillow – she is shy and timid and incredibly neurotic. We know little of her early life, except that she was a police seizure from a home where she had been tortured for years. Every time I visited the orphanage she had invariably wrapped herself in a towel with only her tail sticking out. I brought her home while The Husband was deployed abroad. Like we’re told to do, I put her in a room by herself for a few days so she and Squeaky Boots (Mindy had not joined us yet) could smell and hear each other but with no contact, and I would spend a couple of hours a day in there, reading aloud or perhaps working on my laptop. Chloe cringed and hid, but did not fight too much when I picked her up and held her for a minute or two a couple of times a day. I thought we were making progress.

Then after a couple of days I decided to let her out… and she promptly disappeared. It was two or three weeks or more before I even caught a glimpse of her. Taming her took months. It started with just the touch of a fingertip on her tail. Then she let us touch her head. Then on one glorious day she started rubbing against my leg when she wanted to be touched. She learned that if I was working at my computer – which I nearly always am – she could butt her head against my leg and I would then be allowed to scritch her head for a moment.

I always played along, but once she butted my head in search of a head scritch at the wrong time. I was lost in my work and could not turn loose of the words to play with her. She butted again, once more without my responding.

Chloe has both claws and very intimidating fangs, and she wields both with skill. She turned her head and sank her fangs into my leg. Hard. She neither moved nor ran when I jumped and screamed, but merely butted my leg once more, demanding her scritch. I was overjoyed. She even allowed me to pick her up, put her in my lap and pet her. I didn’t even mind that blood was running down my leg.

And Mindy? Mindy simply moved into our home and hearts. You’d never believe what she suffered before she finally ended up with us, or how we managed to get her. That’s the subject for another blog. Now she is happy to sleep at my feet when I write and with her courageous barking protects the house from sinister mailmen, marauding moths and other offenders.

So how is it working at my writing when I am surrounded and outnumbered? It feels great. At least one is always at my feet or on my desk, and the others are usually within scritching distance. Normally the babies are pretty good about not disturbing me, especially while I’m working, unless it’s time for din-din, when everything descends into pandemonium. But with the love and companionship of three wonderful, affectionate animals, even pandemonium is great.

~~~

Janis Susan May Patterson is a seventh-generation Texan and a third-generation wordsmith who writes cozy mysteries as Janis Patterson, romances, horror and other things as Janis Susan May, children’s books as Janis Susan Patterson and non-fiction and scholarly works as J.S.M. Patterson.

Formerly an actress and singer, a talent agent and Supervisor of Accessioning for a bio-genetic DNA testing lab, Janis has also been editor-in-chief of two multi-magazine publishing groups as well as many other things, including an enthusiastic amateur Egyptologist. She is a founder of RWA and currently serves on a regional MWA Board.

Janis married for the first time when most of her contemporaries were becoming grandmothers. Her husband, also an Egyptophile, even proposed in a moonlit garden near the Pyramids of Giza. Janis and her husband live in Texas with an assortment of rescued furbabies.

Find Janis on Twitter @JanisSusanMay and on Facebook at Janis Susan May.

In Memoriam

To commemorate Memorial Day, I am rerunning a post from my personal blog. Here are some thoughts about the animals who do not make wars but live, and die, in them just the same. - Sheila

Our Companions in War

by Sheila Webster Boneham

My grandmother was a poet. Squarely in the sentimental Victorian tradition, her poems were published in Scottish and Canadian newspapers and small-press collections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I have several fat notebooks filled with her poems, handwritten and pasted in from print sources. Years ago I read my way through them as a way to know the woman who had faded a bit in my mind (I was five when she died). I read most of the poems, but honestly, only one stands out in my mind. It began, "Farewell, my noble friend, farewell," and even now I can’t think of it without feeling the tears well up. The copy in the notebook was yellowed and frayed at the edges. On the facing page was a clipping, a picture that had run in the Drumheller, Alberta, paper and, I’ve learned, many others. It immortalizes the death of a war horse and the grief of his soldier at his death.

Goodby, Old Man by Fortunino Matania

This image, long ago burned into my psyche, is a big reason that I have no desire to see the movie War Horse. I didn't know it at the time, but Italian illustrator Fortunino Matania not infrequently focused on the sad deaths of animals, especially horses, in the war.

Today is Memorial Day in the United States. This holiday, celebrated on the final Monday of May each year, is meant to honor those who have served in the American military. Originally May 30 was known as Decoration Day because one tradition of the day is the decoration of the graves of veterans, a practice that began during or just after the American Civil War (1861-65). The first official observation of remembrance was May 30, 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. By 1890, all Northern states had adopted the holiday, but most Southern states refused to do so until World War I, when the holiday was extended to honor the dead of all American wars.

We usually focus our national pageants on the human price of war. Here today, for a few moments, I ask you to again expand the meaning of Memorial Day and give a thought to the millions of animals who have served, suffered, and died in human wars over the centuries. Think not only of the heroes given our attention and honors, but also of the vast majority of animals recruited into military service who did as they were asked and died unsung. Spare a thought, too, for the millions of animals, domestic and wild, who died as "collateral damage" or by intentional slaughter for political or other purposes. (Hitler, for instance, had non-German breeds of dogs systematically exterminated in Europe.)

Books have been written on animals in war, so I won’t attempt any kind of thorough commentary. Instead, I give you a few photos and a few links to more information, and ask that, as we remember our service people, we also remember the animals.

Horses, Donkeys, and Mules

I can't think of an animal more suited by nature to peace than the equines, and yet horses, donkeys, and mules have been used in human warfare since, probably, the first person threw a leg over an equine's back. Without horses for speed and donkeys and mules for stamina, we as a species would certainly not be where we are today, and our history, especially the history of conquest and war, would have unfolded very differently.

"L" Battery, R.H.A. Retreat from Mons
This British Horse artillery unit made a heroic stand against advancing German troops during the retreat from Mons, Belgium on 1 September 1914. Mons stayed in German hands until liberated by Canadian troops on the last day of the war, 11 November 1918. L Battery R.H.A. How our Gunners Won the V.C. and Silenced the Fire of the German Guns in the Face of Overwhelming Odds. Retreat from Mons 1st September 1914. Print by Fortunino Matania. Canadian War Museum

There are many websites and books about horses in war, but a few I've found especially interesting include the following:

• Unveiling of South African “Horse Memorial”
• Horses in Time of War

Horses, mules, and donkeys naturally became less important to most militaries after World War I, but they aren't out of the service entirely. In fact, they are being used by American forces today in Afghanistan, as shown on Olive Drab's page.

Carrier pigeons

Carrier pigeons have nearly as long a history in military service as do the equines. During World War I, the U.S. Signal Corps deployed at least 600 pigeons in France alone, and Britain used some 250,000 carrier pigeons during World War II. Paddy, an Irish carrier pigeon, was the first pigeon to cross the English Channel with news of success on D-Day. One of hundreds of birds dispatched from the front, Paddy flew 230 miles in 4 hours and 50 minutes. He is one of 32 carrier pigeons to be awarded the Dickin Medal, the highest British decoration for valor given to animals. Another recipient was an American pigeon, GI Joe (below).

To learn more about carrier pigeons who have served, start with these site:

• Pigeons of War
• Pigeons Who Have Been Awarded the Dickin Medal

The Dickin Medal

The PDSA Dickin Medal, recognised in Britain as the animals’ Victoria Cross, is awarded to animals displaying conspicuous gallantry or devotion to duty while serving or associated with any branch of the Armed Forces or Civil Defence Units. The Medal has been awarded to dogs, horses, pigeons, and one cat. The citations on the Rolls of Honour are moving tributes to the role animals play in our service during war, and to the courage of the individual animals who have received the medal.

• Dogs - Dickin Medal
• Horses - Dickin Medal
• Cat - Dickin Medal

No such medal exists in the United States as far as I know (please let me know if I've missed it in my search). In fact, in 2010 the Pentagon refused the request of military dog handlers to establish an official medal for valorous animals.

You're in the Navy Now

Although we tend to think of dogs and, sometimes, horses when we think of animals in the military, cats have also served in the military, often in the navy, like Pooli (below). For more great photos of cats in the Navy, visit Cats in the Sea Service .

"War Veteran - 'Pooli', who rates three service ribbons and four battle stars, shows she can still get into her old uniform as she prepares to celebrate her 15th birthday. The cat served aboard an attack transport during World War II." Los Angeles, 1959

Dogs, too, have served aboard ship, often as ship's mascots and de facto therapy dogs. Imagine how much fun the sailors on the USS Texas had with this gang in 1915. The Texas is now a museum near Houston and has been designated a National Historic Landmark. It is one of six surviving ships to have seen action in both World Wars. Check out the U.S. Naval Institute's Sea Dogs page for more canine sailors.

Love and War

Not all who serve fight, of course, and just having an animal to touch, to care for, and to love can be vital to a service man's or woman's emotional health.

Marine Pvt. John W. Emmons, and the Sixth Division's mascot dog sleep beside a 105mm howitzer on Okinawa, 1945. The Sixth Division suffered almost 2700 casualties during the battle, with another 1,300 being evacuated because of either exhaustion or fatigue. ( U.S. Naval Institute's Sea Dogs)

"Accepting her fate as an orphan of war, 'Miss Hap' a two-week old Korean kitten chows down on canned milk, piped to her by medicine dropper with the help of Marine Sergeant Frank Praytor ... The Marine adopted the kitten after its mother was killed by a mortar barrage near Bunker Hill. The name, Miss Hap, Sergeant Praytor explained, was given to the kitten 'because she was born at the wrong place at the wrong time'."
Korea, ca 1953 (From "Cats in the Sea Service")

As you prepare for your cookout or whatever else you have planned for the holiday, please take a moment to pause and remember what it's really about, and raise a glass to the all the souls - human, canine, equine, feline, avian, and more - the day is meant to honor.

Then hug your animals.

~~~

Sheila Webster Boneham the Animals in Focus Mystery series. She is also the author of seventeen nonfiction books about animals, including the highly regarded Rescue Matters!How to Find, Foster, and Rehome Companion Animals. Her work has appeared in literary and commercial magazines and anthologies, including the forthcoming 2015 Best Science and Nature Writing anthology edited by Rebecca Skloot.  Sheila’s work has won numerous honors, including the Prime Number Magazine Creative Nonfiction Award and multiple Maxwell and MUSE awards in fiction and nonfiction.  Sheila also writes narrative nonfiction and poetry, teaches writing workshops, and, yes, competes with her dogs. Learn more at www.sheilaboneham.com, or keep up with Sheila’s latest news on Facebook or at Sheila”s_Blog .

Sheila's books are available from retail and online booksellers. You can support independent bookselling and get your personally autographed copies of Sheila’s books from Pomegranate Books – information here: http://www.sheilaboneham.com/autographedbooks.html 

Animals Having Their Say by Author Lois Winston

I’ve always been fascinated by the ability of animals to communicate with each other and even more so with humans. It seems logical that animals would have some way of communicating within their own species. We constantly see examples of them working together, and in order to do this, they must have some way of communicating with each other.

 

For example, all you have to do is observe a flock of birds flying in “V” formation. Watch as the leader slips back to allow another bird to take the lead. How do they designate the next bird to fly point? Instinct? I don’t think so. They must be communicating in some way. Otherwise chaos would ensue with birds constantly flying into one another.

We know that dolphins speak to each other. Whales, too. None of this is new. However, the other day I stumbled upon a news clip that claimed chimpanzees speak with accents. Not only that but these accents are learned.

Five years ago nine chimps were moved from The Netherlands to the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland. The chimps originally used a high-pitched noise to ask for apples. However, after living with the Scottish chimps for a while, the Dutch chimps began to use a low grunt to ask for apples, the same sound made by the Scottish chimps. If you’d like to hear the difference between a chimp with a Dutch accent and one with a Scottish accent, you can view the video at http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/find-chimp-scottish-accent-sounds-28804416.

I often include animals in my mysteries and romances. In my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series Anastasia shares her home with a communist French bulldog, a Persian cat named for Russian nobility, and a Shakespeare-spouting African Grey parrot. They all communicate in their own unique ways.

In my romantic comedy Hooking Mr. Right, one of the secondary characters is a matchmaking alley cat named Cupid. He, too, has a very unique way of communicating with the humans in the story.

I’ve read mysteries and romances where the authors have assigned points of view to the pets in the books. I’ve never gone that far, probably because doing so would move me from writing reality-based fiction into the realm of fantasy. Even so, the animals in my books definitely have their say.

Hooking Mr. Right

Can a butt-ugly alley cat named Cupid bring together two people driven apart by secrets and lies?

After writing a doctoral thesis that exposed fraud in the pop-psychology genre, thirty-two year old professor Althea Chandler sacrifices her professional integrity to save her family from financial disaster. She secretly becomes best-selling romance guru Dr. Trulee Lovejoy, self-proclaimed expert on how to catch a man, even though Thea's a miserable failure when it comes to relationships -- especially those with the opposite sex.

Burned by a failed marriage, Luke Bennett finds himself pursued by Dr. Lovejoy toting women after a gossip columnist dubs him New York's most eligible bachelor. When he at first mistakes Thea for one of the women out to snare him, sparks fly, but the two soon find themselves battling sparks of a less hostile nature, thanks in part to that alley cat.

Luke believes he's finally found an honest woman. Unfortunately, Thea is anything but honest. She's got more secrets than the CIA and a desperate gossip columnist out to expose her. Cupid definitely has his work cut out for him.

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USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and non-fiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Visit Lois/Emma at www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. Follow everyone on Tsu at www.tsu.co/loiswinston, on Pinterest at www.pinterest.com/anasleuth, and onTwitter @anasleuth.

Animals and Cozies

by Linda O. Johnston

Last time I blogged here at Writers and Other Animals, my topic was Animals, Novels and Me.  I described how all of my cozy mysteries, and some of my romances, involve animals.  Why?  Because I love animals!

Today I want to talk about how many animal themes there can be in cozy mysteries.  The answer, of course, is that the possibilities are infinite, as wide in scope as there are animals.

I'm especially a dog lover.  I think that's apparent by my focus on dogs in my mysteries, especially my Pet Rescue Mysteries.  My protagonist Lauren Vancouver runs a wonderful no-kill shelter that also saves cats, but she, too, is more of a dog lover so the stories are mostly themed around issues that threaten dogs.

And in my upcoming Superstition Mysteries, my protagonist there, Rory Chasen, who happens to own a lucky dog named Pluckie, will become the manager of the Lucky Dog Boutique.

I'm not the only one who centers cozy mysteries on dogs.  For example, my host here at Writers and Other Animals, Sheila Webster Boneham, writes the Animals in Focus Mysteries.  That's Animals in Focus, not Dogs in Focus.  Even so, many of those animals happen to be dogs.  Her upcoming book Catwalk obviously features a cat, but that doesn't mean dogs don't play a major role, too.

Then there are the Pampered Pets Mysteries by Sparkle Abbey, which likewise feature dogs... and cats.  And the Downward Dog Mysteries by Tracy Weber, where yoga is important, but so is the protagonist's dog.  And the Paws and Claws Mysteries by Krista Davis--also featuring both dogs and cats.  And the Barking Detective Mystery Series by Waverly Curtis, which happens to have a very special Chihuahua in it. 

Some mysteries feature cats without dogs, such as The Cat in the Stacks mysteries by Miranda James and the Magical Cats Mystery Series by Sofie Kelly.

Other animals can be the subjects of mysteries, too.  I took advantage of that in my Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter Mysteries.  Kendra happed to live in the Hollywood Hills, as I do.  She is a lawyer, as I was.  And she happens to own a tricolor Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Lexie, which, coincidentally, is a description of my older Cavalier.  You can guess by the titles of some of the Pet-Sitter Mysteries what animals besides dogs were featured in them: NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FERRETS, FINE-FEATHERED DEATH, MEOW IS FOR MURDER, THE FRIGHT OF THE IGUANA, NEVER SAY STY, and FELINE FATALE, to mention a few.

I haven't attempted to describe all the mysteries there are that happen to involve, or feature, animals.  That's partly because there are so many of them!  Plus, there are more being published all the time.  Apparently not only authors, but readers, too, enjoy animals in their mysteries! 

How about you?  Do you enjoy animals?  Reading about them?  Having them as pets? 

Come visit me at my website:  www.LindaOJohnston.com   You can also friend me on Facebook.  I additionally blog weekly on KillerHobbies.blogspot.com   on Wednesdays, where my Killer Hobby is supposed to be pets--but we all know that pets aren’t hobbies.  They’re family!  I also blog on the 18th of each month on Killer Characters--or at least my characters do.  And I additionally blog on Inkspot, the blog of Midnight Ink authors, and on the 6th of each month at A Slice of Orange, the blog of the Orange County Chapter of Romance Writers of America.  As I've mentioned before, I blog a lot! 

Calling All Animals - Mystery Character Raffle!

by Sheila Webster Boneham

Do you know any pet owners who wouldn't like to have their own pets appear in a a novel? When I asked myself that question a couple of years ago, I couldn't think of anyone, so I pitched an idea to two organizations whose causes I strongly support. I wrote about the raffles last year in "Could Your Dog Be a Sleuth?" And now, I'm doing it again! 

Shepherd's Crook*, Animals in Focus Mystery #4, is scheduled for publication by Midnight Ink in fall 2015. (That may seem a long way off, but in fact I'm writing the book right now, and will be turning it in to the publisher in about three months.) And some lucky creature will win a guest part in the book, while supporting ARPH - Australian Shepherd Rescue and Placement Helpline. Why Aussie rescue? Well, if you've read the first two Animals in Focus mysteries, you know that Jay, the protagdog, is an Aussie, modeled on my own love Jay (jumping in the poster below). Besides that, my husband and I used to breed Aussies under the kennel name "Perennial," and I helped found an Aussie rescue program back in the '90s. 

Thanks to Crystal Aguilar for creating these great posters
& for coordinatiing publicity for ARPH fundraisers,
including this one!

So here's how it works: Hop over to the ARPH character raffle page to enter. All non-human animals are eligible! Since Janet MacPhail, protagonist of the books, is an animal photographer, I can work any animal into the book. After ARPH announces the winner, I will contact his or her owner for information, including at least one photo and some details about personality, abilities, etc. 

You may be wondering what Shepherd's Crook will be about. Here's a short working synopsis: 

Animal photographer Janet MacPhail knows that something is seriously amiss when she and her Aussie, Jay, learn that livestock have disappeared overnight from a herding trial. Then a man dies, and Janet unwittingly photographs the thieves in action, putting herself and those she loves in the killer’s crosshairs.

You can learn more about the Animals in Focus mystery series at online at my website.

So what are you waiting for? 

Click Here to support Aussies in need and enter your pet for a chance at literary stardom!


From now through December 1, Pomegranate Books will donate 10% of your purchase price to support the not-for-profit group you choose - support Aussie rescue, feline health, or animal health. CLICK HERE TO ORDER

For more information about the work of these groups, 

please visit their websites.

Australian Shepherd Rescue & Placement Helpline at http://www.aussierescue.org

Winn Feline Foundation at http://www.winnfelinehealth.org/

Morris Animal Foundation at http://www.morrisanimalfoundation.org/

Previous winners and the raffles they entered!

The first group to hold its raffle was LABMED,  an Internet-based non-profit organization created to distribute financial aid to injured or ill rescued Labrador Retrievers around the country, giving them a second chance at adoption and love from a permanent family. Since The Money Bird spotlights retriever training, and since character Tom Saunders has a black Lab named Drake, LABMED was a natural choice.  (Besides, I've had Labs in my life since 1988, founded Labrador Retriever Rescue of Indiana, Inc., in 1993, and wrote the award-winning Simple Guide to Labrador Retrievers, so how could I not support Labby dabbies?)

LABMED made $200 on the raffle to help with medical expenses for a rescued Lab. The winner of the LABMED raffle, seen here with his owner Diana Holman, is Lennen, who was a ten-year-old rescued boy who was turned in by his owners. They had kept him out in the backyard all his life. Aside from having landed in heaven with Diana, her six other Labs, with a comfy indoor couch to sleep on, Lennen also landed a part in The Money Bird, my second Animals in Focus mystery. Doesn't he look pleased about it all? Sadly, Lennen is now playing at the Rainbow Bridge, but he lives on in his fictional role ~ a heroic one, at that! ~ and I'm sure he is smiling at us from the Bridge.

I won't tell you what he does in the book, but the "Money Bird" Lennen has an interesting job, to say the least. You can tell by the grin on his face that Lennen liked the idea.

The second raffle was sponsored by Canine Health Events, a diverse gathering of dog lovers from across the country who are dedicated to improving the lives and health of dogs. Using normal dog events, they raise money for canine health research both through entry fees and additional fund-raisers, such as raffles, auctions and sponsorships. They held the main part of the raffle online, with additional sales and their drawing at their big agility trial on June 8, 2012. I'm delighted to say that CHE raised $2,000 with this raffle, all of which went to support research on canine health issues. 


The winner of the CHE raffle is Pilot, whose official name is MACH3 V-NATCH Gallopin'Jet Pilot CDX JH FTC WC VCX ADHF CCA CGC PS1. According to owner and compeitition partner Stephanie Schmitter, Pilot "is a very athletic and versatile golden retriever." That should be obvious from his titles! (For the unitiated, he is a Master Agility Champion three times over and has additional titles in agility, obedience and field, with a lifetime ranking of #66 for Golden Retrievers in AKC agility). Stephanie says, "He loves field work and will retrieve on land or in water until you make him stop" - which makes him perfect for The Money Bird, which features retrievers of all flavors training in the water and on land!

Stephanie writes, "Pilot will retrieve just about anything and is very helpful in picking things up around the house, including any shoes left around as well as his food bowl when he is finished eating.  But the thing he loves most in life is a tennis ball.  Although he is 8 years old, he acts like a puppy when he sees a tennis ball.  And he loves to carry 2 balls at a time!"

The third book in the series, Catwalk, has canine and feline agility, a cat show, and a feral cat colony, so when it came time to think about a character raffle, I went to the cats. Mackenzie, pictured here and owned & loved by Matt & Lisa Chin, won a guest role in the book, and her raffle ticket helped Support F.I.P. Research. Sadly, FIP took Mackenzie much to young, but she lives on in her fictional role and in hope for healthy cats.

A new character raffle is in the works for the fourth book in the Animals in Focus series ~ I will share details in a month or so, so please stay tuned! I'd like to thank EVERYONE who enters these raffles, because in my book ~ the big book of life ~ you're all winners for supporting such worthwhile causes and having faith in my new mysteries, too.

For more information about the Animals in Focus mysteries, and the series, please visit my website Mysteries Page, and for immediate news join me on Facebook at my author's page.

Autographed copies of Drop Dead on Recall, The Money Bird, and my nonfiction books, including Rescue Matters, from Pomegranate Books. You can also PRE-ORDER your autographed copies of Catwalk, coming this fall.

Also available from your favorite bookseller (think Indie!) and online: Paperback and Kindle editions HERE

Audible editions HERE

*Title pending confirmation by publisher. 

In Memoriam: Our Companions in War

by Sheila Webster Boneham

Animals who do not make wars but live, and die, in them just the same.

Goodby, Old Man by Fortunino Matania

My grandmother was a poet. Squarely in the sentimental Victorian tradition, her poems were published in Scottish and Canadian newspapers and small-press collections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I have several fat notebooks filled with her poems, handwritten and pasted in from print sources. Years ago I read my way through them as a way to know the woman who had faded a bit in my mind (I was five when she died). I read most of the poems, but honestly, only one stands out in my mind. It began, "Farewell, my noble friend, farewell," and even now I can’t think of it without feeling the tears well up. The copy in the notebook was yellowed and frayed at the edges. On the facing page was a clipping, a picture that had run in the Drumheller, Alberta, paper and, I’ve learned, many others. It immortalizes the death of a war horse and the grief of his soldier at his death.





This image, long ago burned into my psyche, is a big reason that I have no desire to see the movie War Horse. I didn't know it at the time, but Italian illustrator Fortunino Matania not infrequently focused on the sad deaths of animals, especially horses, in the war.


Today is Memorial Day in the United States. This holiday, celebrated on the final Monday of May each year, is meant to honor those who have served in the American military. Originally May 30 was known as Decoration Day because one tradition of the day is the decoration of the graves of veterans, a practice that began during or just after the American Civil War (1861-65). The first official observation of remembrance was May 30, 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. By 1890, all Northern states had adopted the holiday, but most Southern states refused to do so until World War I, when the holiday was extended to honor the dead of all American wars.

We usually focus our national pageants on the human price of war. Here today, for a few moments, I ask you to again expand the meaning of Memorial Day and give a thought to the millions of animals who have served, suffered, and died in human wars over the centuries. Think not only of the heroes given our attention and honors, but also of the vast majority of animals recruited into military service who did as they were asked and died unsung. Spare a thought, too, for the millions of animals, domestic and wild, who died as "collateral damage" or by intentional slaughter for political or other purposes. (Hitler, for instance, had non-German breeds of dogs systematically exterminated in Europe.)


Whole books have been written on animals in war, so I won’t attempt any kind of thorough commentary. Instead, I give you a few photos and a few links to more information, and ask that, as we remember our service people, we also remember the animals. They had no choice.

Horses, Donkeys, and Mules

I can't think of an animal more suited by nature to peace than the equines, and yet horses, donkeys, and mules have been used in human warfare since, probably, the first person threw a leg over an equine's back. Without horses for speed and donkeys and mules for stamina, we as a species would certainly not be where we are today, and our history, especially the history of conquest and war, would have unfolded very differently.

"L" Battery, R.H.A. Retreat from Mons

This British Horse artillery unit made a heroic stand 

against advancing German troops during the retreat from

Mons, Belgium on 1 September 1914. Mons stayed in 

German hands until liberated by Canadian troops on the 

last day of the war, 11 November 1918. L Battery R.H.A. 

How our Gunners Won the V.C. and Silenced the Fire of

 the German Guns in the Face of Overwhelming Odds. 

Retreat from Mons 1st September 1914. Print by 

Fortunino Matania. Canadian War Museum

There are many websites and books about horses in war, but a few I've found especially interesting include the following:

• Unveiling of South African “Horse Memorial”
• Horses in Time of War

Horses, mules, and donkeys naturally became less important to most militaries after World War I, but they aren't out of the service entirely. In fact, they are being used by American forces today in Afghanistan, as shown on Olive Drab's page.

Carrier pigeons

Carrier pigeons have nearly as long a history in military service as do the equines. During World War I, the U.S. Signal Corps deployed at least 600 pigeons in France alone, and Britain used some 250,000 carrier pigeons during World War II. Paddy, an Irish carrier pigeon, was the first pigeon to cross the English Channel with news of success on D-Day. One of hundreds of birds dispatched from the front, Paddy flew 230 miles in 4 hours and 50 minutes. He is one of 32 carrier pigeons to be awarded the Dickin Medal, the highest British decoration for valor given to animals. Another recipient was an American pigeon, GI Joe (below).

To learn more about carrier pigeons who have served, start with these site:

• Pigeons of War
• Pigeons Who Have Been Awarded the Dickin Medal

The Dickin Medal

The PDSA Dickin Medal, recognised in Britain as the animals’ Victoria Cross, is awarded to animals displaying conspicuous gallantry or devotion to duty while serving or associated with any branch of the Armed Forces or Civil Defence Units. The Medal has been awarded to dogs, horses, pigeons, and one cat. The citations on the Rolls of Honour are moving tributes to the role animals play in our service during war, and to the courage of the individual animals who have received the medal.

• Dogs - Dickin Medal
• Horses - Dickin Medal
• Cat - Dickin Medal

No such medal exists in the United States as far as I know (please let me know if I've missed it in my search). In fact, in 2010 the Pentagon refused the request of military dog handlers to establish an official medal for valorous animals.

You're in the Navy Now

"War Veteran - 'Pooli', who rates three service ribbons 
and four battle stars, shows she can still get into 
her old uniform as she prepares to celebrate her 15th 
birthday. The cat served aboard an attack transport 
during World War II." Los Angeles, 1959

Although we tend to think of dogs and, sometimes, horses when we think of animals in the military, cats have also served in the military, often in the navy, like Pooli (below). For more great photos of cats in the Navy, visit Cats in the Sea Service .

Dogs, too, have served aboard ship, often as ship's mascots and de facto therapy dogs. Imagine how much fun the sailors on the USS Texas had with this gang in 1915. The Texas is now a museum near Houston and has been designated a National Historic Landmark. It is one of six surviving ships to have seen action in both World Wars. Check out the U.S. Naval Institute's Sea Dogs page for more canine sailors.

Love and War

Not all who serve fight, of course, and just having an animal to touch, to care for, and to love can be vital to a service man's or woman's emotional health.

Marine Pvt. John W. Emmons, and the Sixth Division's mascot dog 
sleep beside a 105mm howitzer on Okinawa, 1945. The Sixth Division 
suffered almost 2700 casualties during the battle, with another 1,300 
being evacuated because of either exhaustion or fatigue. 
( U.S. Naval Institute's Sea Dogs)

"Accepting her fate as an orphan of war, 'Miss Hap,' 

a two-week old Korean kitten chows down on canned milk, 

piped to her by medicine dropper with the help of 

Marine Sergeant Frank Praytor ... The Marine 

adopted the kitten after its mother was killed by a 

mortar barrage near Bunker Hill. The name, Miss Hap, 

Sergeant Praytor explained, was given to the kitten

 'because she was born at the wrong place at the 

wrong time'." Korea, ca 1953 

(From "Cats in the Sea Service")

As you prepare for your cookout or whatever else you have planned for the holiday, please take a moment to pause and remember what it's really about, and raise a glass to the all the souls - human, canine, equine, feline, avian, and more - the day is meant to honor.


Then hug your animals.