Every Story Needs a Dog or Cat

When you are a dog lover like me and you write stories to share with readers, you might come up with some four-legged furry characters from time to time. So far I haven’t put Frankie in a story yet, but here in this picture he looks like he’s telling me that might be a fun idea. Well, actually he’s insisting it’s time for a walk, but I write fiction so I can change his motivation a little to fit my story. 🙂

Today on my Facebook author page, I, along with some others, decided it would be a good time to post some cute puppy or kitten pictures to help with the stress levels of this pandemic year. That’s the thing about those sweet pets. They have a way of helping you see the good in a day no matter what else is happening.

So, I’ve enjoyed dropping pets down into my stories. Some of those dog, cat, or horse characters have been important to the stories the way the cats were in my Hidden Springs mysteries. A cat on the cover just shouts out that the book is going to be a cozy mystery. My favorite of those covers has to be Murder Comes by Mail. That story breaks a lot of cozy mystery rules, but it does have a great cat in the story named Grimalkin that turns out to have an important scene before all is said and done.  And the cat does have the most beautiful eyes on the cover.

While the cats ruled in those Hidden Springs mysteries, dogs had slipped into many of my other stories. In fact, Michael has a dog named Jasper in the Hidden Springs stories that I made look like my sweet Oscar, a black lab.

In The Innocent, Asher plays a big role all the way through the story and was very devoted to my character, Carlyn. In These Healing Hills, Sarge was such an important dog character that he got to be on the cover. Sarge came right out of my research about the Frontier Nursing Service. The nurse midwives often had companion dogs as they rode up into the hills to take care of their patients. One of the true accounts of a nurse midwife I read had a wonderful dog that she said saved her life on more than one occasion. So how could I not let Francine have a similar dog that would come to the rescue for her? Plus both Asher and Sarge did help stir up a little extra romance between my characters too.

Jocie in my Heart of Hollyhill book, Scent of Lilacs, has the dog hunger so badly that she said a dog prayer and then had a stray dog follow her home. While Zeb doesn’t place a big part in the story, he was always around to make Jocie happier.

In An Appalachian Summer, Piper gets to know several of the Frontier Nursing dogs  and some of the mountain dogs too. She had plenty of chances to get to know horses too as a Frontier Nursing courier who had the task of taking care of the nurse midwives’ horses. I had fun naming the different horses in that story and letting my characters ride up into the hills on them. Piper’s aunt, Truda, was a reluctant horse rider which also often happened when visitors came to the mountains as guests of the Frontier Nursing Service. But for those early years of the Service, a horse was the only way to go. But with all those horses around, it was fun to have a horse show up on the cover of An Appalachian Summer. 

A horse shows up on the cover for my upcoming book, out next June, Along a Storied Trail. A cover reveal is coming up here very soon. And as in so many of my other stories, a dog shows up to help the story along.

I hope you like having some animal characters in the stories you read because I do enjoy dropping a few down into my stories.  I’m just getting to know my characters in the new story I’m working on, but I can already tell, some interesting animal characters are going to show up in those pages too.

Do you think it’s fun when pets show up in the stories you read? If you’ve read my books, did you have a favorite animal character? 

Who knows? Frankie might find a way into one of my stories someday. If so, he’ll be an energetic character that will keep my people busy.