Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
(Groucho Marx)
The mayor's farm and her town are strapped for cash.
Is this sexy television producer financial salvation or major trouble?
For information and purchase details on this and the stories mentioned below,
I have never owned a dog. In our childhood home, the only pet was a much-loved ginger cat who thought he ruled his people ('dogs have masters, cats have slaves'). His reincarnation appeared in my contemporary romance Finding Billie as a feisty feline who purrs with most humans but spits at those who are not nice to Billie. My sister and I would have loved to have a dog, but -- "you have a cat, you can't have another animal" and "who would walk it" and "we don't have room", and other reasons/excuses. We had a temporary enthusiasm for an aquarium, though goldfish can hardly be termed pets; ours led short and probably wretched lives.
As an adult, for various reasons it has not been possible to own a dog. Maybe as unconscious compensation, in several of my contemporary romance novels I have enjoyed including a dog with a part to play in the plot. Researching is one of my favourite aspects of writing fiction, and I spent considerable time on deciding which breed of dog would be appropriate for the character whose lifestyle and/or job needs a canine companion and/or a working dog.
In Sealing the Deal, Anna lives alone on an isolated alpaca stud, and needs a dog as a companion and as a guard animal, and one whose breeding indicates he can get on with other animals and therefore can learn to check the alpacas. I gave her a Great Dane, and named him Hooli short for Hooligan. She
hopes that alongside his normal friendly attitude he will display some hooligan behaviour if she, her animals or property are threatened. The sheer appearance of a Great Dane can at first be alarming; a visitor describes Hooli as the size of a small pony when the dog won't let him get out of his car until Anna arrives and assures her guardian this visitor is harmless.Callum in Hot Ticket, now living in the city after a childhood on a cattle station, misses animals. From Animal Rescue he chose a puppy cattle dog because of his breed and that he looked sad. JD (= Juvenile Delinquent because clearly he had never been trained) becomes an important secondary character in the developing romance between Callum and Olivia.
A sheepdog is a necessity in Dancing the Reel, a story involving sheep farming on two Scottish Hebridean islands. Deefer, as in D for Dog, is the border collie so named by Hamish because after owning many dogs in his long shepherding life he had no more names. This intelligent young dog is undoubtedly the boss of the hundreds of sheep, and off duty is a loyal and caring companion for Hamish.
At the start of my dog research, I discovered there are over 400 breeds worldwide. Intending to check exclusively for the canines who became Hooli, JD and Deefer, I found out far more than I needed to know for the story purposes, and became somewhat sidetracked into a few other breeds. I have a dog in mind for the current work-in-progress...
Happy reading, Priscilla
https://bwlpublishing.ca
https://priscillabrownauthor.com
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