For The Love of Dogs

Nov 2016

Let me start by declaring my allegiance: I’m a dog person. It isn’t that I don’t like cats, just that I prefer dogs. They are  loyal companions, fearless protectors,  sensitive to our moods and brimming with unconditional love.

No surprise then that dogs find their way into my novels. In Learning To Speak American, Lola’s husband can’t talk about the daughter they lost, or the fatal accident that happened on his watch, so she talks to their black Lab, Darcy, instead. ‘He’s a good listener,’ she tells her friend. The friend has a dog too, a rangy mutt with no breeding but a kind heart. The women, who live five thousand miles apart, look forward with great excitement to their dogs meeting for the first time and all the mischief they will undoubtedly get into. Talking about it brings them joy—an emotion alien to Lola since the death of her only child.

In my second novel, An Unsuitable Marriage, the dogs in question are a pair of boisterous Dalmatians—Rollo and Dice. They live with about-to-be-bankrupt Geoffrey, who moved back in with his mother when his own house got repossessed and his wife, Olivia, took a job as Houseparent at their son’s prep school. Amidst all the stress and turmoil in their life, it is long country walks with the dogs that Olivia daydreams about. And when she thinks of their easy affection and unquestioning loyalty, she can’t help wishing her husband was more a bit more like them.

What prompted me to write a blog about how dogs feature in my books was the news that my own beloved dog, Lulu, has lost her sight. She is only nine and in excellent health, so it was a shock to discover that her sudden blindness was inoperable and permanent. And that’s the down side of loving our pets so much—when they hurt, we hurt. I am assured Lulu will adjust to life without sight as her other senses sharpen and compensate, and of course she has the support of a loving family and her big brother, Oscar.