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Dear Reader,
Jo Bannister, today's guest author, has written more than thirty novels, published on both sides of the Atlantic. Other Countries, part of the Gabriel Ash Mystery series, is her latest Book. Jo has been a professional writer since the age of 17, first as a provincial journalist and editor, then as a novelist. Jo lives in Northern Ireland, on a spit of land between the Irish Sea and Strangford Lough.
Say hello to Jo, email her here.
Today's guest author, Jo Bannister...
Excepting those which have killed someone, Grace was possibly the worst dog in the world.
She didn't look it. She had a notably sweet and innocent expression--which should have set alarm bells ringing. As should the fact that she'd had four different homes in two years. But as an old hand at dogs, I reckoned I could sort her out.
Grace was an old hand at people, and reckoned that if there was any sorting to be done, she'd be the one doing it.
It wasn't exactly that she was disobedient, more that she didn't acknowledge any authority higher than her own. When I gave commands, her amber eyes widened in surprise and disappointment that I still didn't understand our respective roles.
Grace was a lurcher, a cross between a hunting hound and a greyhound. A dog that could run like the wind, and keep running all day, and never come back when she was called because the call of the scent was always stronger. Keeping her safe meant walking her on the lead--or on fifty feet of washing-line, which gave her scope to run but caused considerable mirth at our local beach.
She chewed. Anything. Everything. Books. Duvets. In particular, no sock was safe. She demolished three indoor kennels.
Then there were the allergies. She was allergic to dog food. She was allergic to anti-allergenic dog food. She was allergic to most human food. She was violently allergic to those special titbits that dogs find lying in gutters. She would flush pink under her fine white coat, her gentle amber eyes would go darkly wild, and her feet would itch fiercely and demand rigorous chewing. Keeping her well meant restricting her to a diet of boiled rice with fish or chicken.
One winter we had a dusting of snow and she got frost-bite. I bought her some little boots because, in spite of everything, I was immensely fond of her.
The allergies got her in the end. When they developed into a full-blown auto-immune disease, the treatment was steroids. By now you won't be surprised to learn that Grace was allergic to steroids.
She moved on to a higher, or more probably a hotter, place some years ago. But she's memorialised in my recent books as a talking dog named Patience. That bit is fiction: Grace couldn't talk. I know this for a fact. If she had mastered language, the first thing she'd have said was: "Can't you cook anything apart from boiled rice?"
--Jo Bannister
Email Jo here.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
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