Dear Reader,
While Diane Kelly, today's guest author, spent most of her life in Texas, she now calls North Carolina home. She cohabitates with three cats, three dogs, and a very patient husband. Her pets and their unique personalities play into the kitty and canine characters in her books, including sweet little Sawdust, the crime fighting cat from her House Flipper series, and K-9 Brigit who stars in the Paw Enforcement series, including Diane's brand-new release, Bending the Paw. Can our favorite K-9 team solve a murder when the body refuses to be found?
Diane told me she loves to hear from readers, so send her a "Hello" at [email protected].
'Every scent is a story...'
I'm "mom" to three spoiled mutts. We take long walks each morning. In all honesty, calling the activity a "walk" feels like a misnomer. It's more of a stroll, a meandering, a mosey. Rarely do my dogs follow a straight path for more than a few feet. Like much of North Carolina, my neighborhood is heavily wooded. Deer, snakes, box turtles, frogs, and approximately 99 million squirrels make their homes among the trees. My dogs enjoy following scent trails their fellow creatures left behind--at least as far as their retractable leashes will allow. They pull me from one side of the
street to the other as they amble along, their noses to the ground, sniffling and snuffling. Sometimes, my dogs lock onto different scents, yanking in opposite directions, testing how far my arms and patience can stretch. Other times, they weave crisscrossing paths, intent on tying me up in knots with their leashes. I've developed some creative ballet-like maneuvers to keep their leashes untangled. 'Arms up and pirouette!'
I've come to realize the walks are more than exercise to them. It's also their "reading time" for the day, a way to enjoy the stories surrounding us. While we humans read with our eyes, dogs read with their noses. They can discern with a whiff whether a doe and her fawn lingered at the edge of a lawn, nibbling on the clover. A sniff tells them that a fox trotted by in the wee hours, searching for a late-night snack, or that a snake is slithering softly through the bed of fallen leaves nearby. Scenting is their way of following a story, of getting to know the characters and what those characters are up to.
Though I can't read the stories myself, my dogs give me clues. A stiff, intense sniffing posture means a thriller plot or dark suspense story. When the dogs take a winding path, backtracking and circling about, they're on the trail of a good mystery. A lively trot with a wagging tail is a happy story, maybe a romantic comedy starring two squirrels whose eyes met over acorns. Of course, other dogs leave them stories on trees, mailboxes, and fire hydrants, too--olfactory autobiographies, if you will. My dogs even seem to have their favorite stories and characters, returning to certain spots like we humans return to a beloved book series. Next time you take your dog for a walk, see if you can "read" along with them!
--Diane Kelly
Diane loves to hear from readers! Email Diane at [email protected].
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
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REGAINING PARADISE (NonFiction) by Paul Corson
Are you in search of some answers to life's big questions? Are you trying to figure out how your spirituality and belief in science can intersect? That's exactly why I wrote this book. I tried to sensibly reconcile faith and science in a manner both simple and deep, allowing the mind's eye to perceive new means of understanding the rational and the miraculous.
Go to: AUTHORBUZZ click on REGAINING PARADISE to read more and to email author Paul Corson, you'll get a reply.
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