Why Buster looks like he does

The story of why Buster looks as he does is a slightly shameful one, one that we hid from, to some extent, when it happened. To go back to the beginning, my husband and I, for many years since we got our first Schnauzer in 1987, spent much time showing, and then breeding pedigree dogs, first schnauzers, and then pharaoh hounds as well. Then we realised our hearts weren't really that interested in the pure bred dog game, that seemed less and less like a fine way to spend our weekends, and we gave it all away.

Before we gave up dog showing, something happened that made us stop showing for a while, half a year in fact. That thing was something that purebred dog people should never be involved with, and that is cross-breeding. We had two different breeds of dogs at the time. We had Schnauzers and we had one Pharaoh Hound, our first. The Pharaoh Hound was a handsome thing, and one of our schnauzers obviously felt the same about him.

Nena was having her first season, and was at theat stage when she really, really, really wanted to do something about it. She went through two fences to get to Kharis, he did what came naturally to him, she did what come naturally to her, and Nature did what comes naturally to animals when they mate ... Puppies arrived around 63 days, as is usual, and we then had to find homes for what were certainly not as sought after as our usual pure bred puppies.

So these puppies are exactly what Buster is, a Pharoah Hound, Schnauzer cross. A lean dog, built a little like a greyhound, with a mostly smooth coat, but with a slightly bushy face. Slightly like a Pharoah Hounds face (big pointy ears), slightly like a Schnauzer face, bearded. It was a mistake that we didn't keep Nena locked up, but it was certainly not done by us, it was done by the dogs.

We certainly make sure we keep our in season girl dogs well away from out male dog, who is the son of Kharis. We still have Nena, but she is desexed now, and far too old for puppies now anyway. She had some litters of lovely pure Schnauzer puppies after that mistake litter, puppies that had proper Schnauzer ears, not big stick up in the air ears!

The litters are all over now though, and the dogs just lounge around the house, or race around the yard, with no need to prance around the show ring. Life is good.

We still have more dogs than the average person (four of them), but we are happy to have our weekends back so we can do the things most (non-show) people do. Being involved in dog showing is the kind of thing that can certainly take over your life.

Anyway - we just have pet dogs now, so being involved in that bit of cross-breeding is no longer something we have to keep hidden. It was never our idea anyway, it was the dog's idea.

So, if you were to name the offspring of the mis-mating that happened, you would call them Pharaozers perhaps. Whatever you call them, they were cute enough. Having shown dogs for about twenty years, I was against cross breeding of dogs, and looked down on those who had puppies without pedigrees. I've settled down on the idea about that now, to some extent.

I have friends with beloved pet dogs, of various shapes and types, and I can see these little bits and pieces pets bring much joy to the lives of their owners. I'm thinking about Cathy's Bess, and Suzanne's Mozart, and I know these dogs are absolutely perfect! Oh except for Mozart's shoe fetish ...
So many shoes chewed ... But he's so cute and loving!

The "Buster" book series - Book Two

Yes, it's official - "Dig It - Gardening Tips for Dogs" is now officially Book One in the Buster book series. The book I've been working on late last year and up until now, "Doggone It - Mindfulness from a Dog's Point of View" is Book Two.

"Doggone It" will be printed this year, and probably be launched during the Gawler Festival of Words in July. This book has more pages, and and touches on deep life issues. Further to that, while the illustrator is the same as with the first book, she shows more mature in her illustrations, and touches more deeply with the innermost truths of Buster.

If you enjoyed the fun of Buster having fun in the garden, you will be amazed at the wisdom he shows as he looks closely into Mindfulness. As the co-writer of these books with Buster, I have enjoyed exploring my inner canine, woof, woof! Exploring Mindfulness while channeling Buster has helped me to consider the the various aspects of Mindfulness, whilst looking further into possible differences between my way, and Busters way.

This enabled me to think about the different parts of Mindfulness, how they appear to the canine, how they appear to humans, what the differences are, and what are the aspects that are the same for both species. It's always interesting to me to see just how alike us humans can be to dogs, and how dogs can sometimes seem almost human.

It is so easy to see how and why we met up so many years ago, and the relationship gets stronger and stronger all of the time. May it ever remain so!

Do you have a mindful dog? Or at least a dog that sometimes has mindful moments? If you do, we'd love to read about it, please leave us a comment here. There may be a free book on offer to the best mindful dog story I read!

Follow-up Book getting Bigger & Better!

"Dig It!" has been a fun book, and a learning experience for sure. Even though I will probably never see sales in the thousands with this book, I've enjoyed the process, and the friendships made and/or strengthened in the whole process. Every signed copy sold, every smile on the face of a new reader, these all bring a welcome warmth to my heart and me confidence as a writer!

This follow-up book, "Doggone It! Mindfulness from a Dog's Point of View" is another learning experience, and oh my, is the book looking like being something super special! The illustrations for the book arrived in the mail this morning, and I took them with me to Poetic Justice Cafe Gallery, to share around with my friends meeting there.

We had a wonderful time, and all agreed that my illustrator, Allyson Hean, has done an even better job with her pictures of 'Buster' my fellow 'writer' for this book. Ally seems to have got into Buster's head and seen the mindful things happening in his mind, with excellent results.

I also asked one of my friends whether she is interested in writing a foreword for "Doggone It!" and I am thrilled and humbled at her enthusiastic response! So, with pictures here, the foreword on its way and the rest of the text almost done, it was time to think about more details.

One of the things a new book needs is a book launch. And given my wonderful friends from Poetic Justice who have played a part in the making of this book, it was obviously the best place, where I have books on display for sale, to consider for the book launch. I have signed copies of "Dig It!" (and my two my other books here). I am the Writer-in-Residence here, and I feel so comfortable here!

So, I've given Cathy, who is working on the foreword, a deadline, and I am sure both Cathy and I will have this book ready well in time for a book launch some time in May! My next job is to speak to a possible printer about cost and a timeline for completion of the book copies, and get the final book finished off and ready to go.

Exciting times for sure, and I am finding it difficult to calm down about it. I will therefore sit still, look into the inner depths of my mind and see infinity, and see nothingness. Omm, omm, omm ...

Done!

Sneak Preview from "Doggone It ! Mindfulness from a Dog's POV"

The putting together of a book is an interesting thing but sometimes frustrating and even tedious thing. Waiting for a book, when you've read the first one in the series and are waiting for the follow-up can be tedious too.

For all of my friends and followers of this blog who are waiting for Doggone It! to be published I'm sharing with you a small part of what is coming. It's a quiz, and I hope you take a look and see how your dog measures up in terms of Mindfulness!

Please let me know how you went with this quiz, I'm panting to find out how people feel about it!

Dig It! is Now the First Book!

Yes, it's true, "Dig It! Gardening Tips For Dogs" was initially just a single book, but it is now the first in the series, because the next book is in the middle of being made.

I have written a first draft and done a little editing of the next book in the series! I will need to put in some more words in a couple of the chapters but it's more or less done, in terms of the text part of it. I caught up with the illustrator of Dig It, Ally Hean, and gave her a copy of the manuscript of the next book, and she is happy, or even keen, to get going with the pictures.

This is exciting stuff! I've done quite well with Dig It! and I hope the world is going to love this next book too. It's written by Buster again, and it's on a different topic, again looking at a human thing that dogs get involved in too, and looking at it from the point of view of our canine companions, well, at least from Buster's point of view!

So what is this book, you ask? Well it's this - "Doggone It! Mindfulness from a Dog's Point of View". Earlier this year I had the opportunity to go to a Mindfulness program, put on by the MS Society of SA & NT. I've had a long standing interest in mindfulness and I loved these workshops. I also like watching my four dogs as they go about their day, and I've had some amusing ideas about whether dogs are mindful creatures. That's how I got started writing the book.

When I began working on this book, I had just begun my role as Writer-in-Residence at the Poetic Justice Cafe & Gallery in Gawler, South Australia. In that role, it was appropriate for me to talk to interested people there about what my current work in progress was, and how it was going. It was when I was talking with regulars there, that one of them came up with Doggone It! as a possible title. I loved it and so that is what the book is titled.

It's not just a joke book, it actually does look at the issue of mindfulness, looking at it seriously to some extent, but thinking about how it would be from the canine viewpoint. I look at our dogs a lot, I think about things a lot, and "Doggone It!" is the result. I hope this book will be finished and printed some time around the middle of next year, or if not the middle, then certainly before Christmas 2016.

Buster, Ally and I are going to have a lot of fun with this, and I hope other people will have fun with it too!

Do you have a mindful dog? Or even a cat that has mindful moments? I'd love to hear about it, feel free to leave a comment if you do!

Something Cool is Happening!

"Something cool? What do you think that could be? Lots of cool things happen, you're let outside to bark at stuff, sometimes you smell reptiles and other potential food items, and of course dinner, that's the coolest thing there is - energy free food, served up to you with no effort on your part! Cool.

But this cool thing is more cool to the humans. And sort of cool for me too, I suppose. This cool thing is that Carolyn Cordon has been taped reading part of our first book, 'Dig It! Gardening Tips for Dogs', and a copy of the recording is out there on the internet, whatever that is ... - this is where you can listen!" Buster.

Thank Buster, I had lots of fun with that recording, reading from the book, and trying to get my voice pitched so it sounded like Buster would sound if he was the one doing the reading. A slightly deep voice, with a bit of a bristle and quite gruff.

I haven't got it perfect yet, but I hope by the end of the book I'll have it right! This is my first podcast, and certainly not my last. So far we've only done the introduction and a chapter (maybe two? Not sure). Anyway, it was fun and I'm keen to get on with more of it. I hope I can encourage lots of people to have a listen too!

The website is a new one launched last night in Gawler  and apparently people were wanting to know more about the book, way. I really, really should have been there at the meeting. Gawler Broadcasting Association is slowly building up more and more podcasts, exciting times!

After Dig It! is done, it might be time to get to work on finishing off the next book in the series - Doggone It! This one will be all about Digger's ideas on what Mindfulness is all about for dogs. Fun stuff again, but more serious this time, as you might expect.

Talk again soon!

Blogs Created for Books

As a writer, particularly a self-published author, I am interested in the idea of making mega bucks from my books! Well to be honest, that's not true - I'm a realistic person, and don't expect to make mega bucks. The genres I'm interested in writing, and my views on life aren't the kind that would necessarily attract millions of readers.

What I hope to do with my writing is to amuse people, entertain them and perhaps give them interesting ideas to think further on. This book "Dig It! Gardening Tips for Dogs" was initially created with my friend Ally Hean, who likes to draw, and does it well. We were coffee and chat friends, our sons were friends at Mallala Primary School. I shared a little article I'd written about a dog that liked to garden, and things took off from there.

I'd never self-published a book before, but had been successful with Victorian School Reader Publisher with a book called "My Dog", and I was and still am a keen exponent of creative writing. Ally and I took this initial writing, with me doing more writing and Ally drawing relevant pictures of what was going on. The text and pics went together well, Ally worked at turning it into a book and we sent it to a local printer.

Grandeur Press, in Balaklava was the printer, and they did a fine job. We did a small print run, and set about selling copies of the book. That first print run sold out, and there was enough money left over from sales for another print run, and so it went on. There are copies of this book available in the National Library and in some libraries in South Australia. Ally has moved on, and I have shifted my literary focus to Gawler, and so my third print run was with a printer in Gawler - Bunyip Press. I'm happy with their work too, and will continue my connection with them for future printing needs.

There is more to creating books than just printing them though, and that's actually selling the books. This is the marketing side of things. The nuts and bolts gritting and sometimes grubby side! Haha! Not really - marketing can be as nice as having a chat with someone and showing them your book, accepting money or in kind payment if the person would like a signed copy. This is a way that connections and friendships can grow and strengthen.

But there are other ways too, having books in bookshops, or promoting them online. One of the online ways is to set up a blog for your book, and/or for yourself. My first 'book blog' was this one, set up with details about the book, and about how to buy a copy of the book. Blogs are something I have an off/on relationship. I became extremely keen on this blogging at one stage and created quite a few blogs, posting and commenting on them, and gaining readers.

Then the passion for it waned, and outside things rather than online ones became more important to me, as can happen. I've kept up some presence in the blogging world though, having created separate blogs for my next two books - "damaged children, Precious Gems" - a book about child sexual abuse, and abuse in general, and - "Mick Jane and Me - Living Well with MS" - a memoir about my life with Multiple Sclerosis, written soon after I was diagnosed with MS in 2010. This blog is the one that gets the most of my blogging attention.

I will continue blogging and I hope selling my books, and I with continue writing more books - I'm currently thinking and doing the initial stages of planning for two books to follow on from "Dig it!" - it's fun, and I'm hoping it all goes well, with one of the new books out at the end of this year and the other in 2016! Keep your eye out here for more news!