The Dogs of THE PACK!

Welcome to my new webpage! With shiny new blog! I’m so excited with how it came out—I hope you like it!

This week, Dogs of the Drowned City Book 2, The Pack, was released and to celebrate, this week’s blog is about the new packmates Shep meets in this story!

Just to refresh your memory, the storm has now passed and Shep and his packmates must try to survive in the ruined city left behind. What food is left to eat? What new dangers did the storm bring? And what old ones remain to threaten the pack?

Honey the Goldendoodle is the first dog Shep meets in the Drowned City. She’s sweet and upbeat and excited to join the pack but there’s one catch—she won’t leave her ruined den without her best friend, a Maine Coon cat named Fuzz.

Honey is based on a dog who lives in my neighborhood. I don’t know the real dog, but I see her when I walk Pete and Kerry and she always looks happy and excited. Plus, I love the word Goldendoodle! Don’t you?

Fuzz is based on my cat, Oscar. I grew up with dogs, as one might have noticed from my bio, My Life In Dogs, but my husband grew up with cats, and so when I adopted Peter, the deal was he got to adopt a cat. Enter Oscar! When we first got Oscar, I remember being entirely creeped out by how he would sit on the back of the furniture and stare at me. When a dog stares at you, he wants something, but Oscar, he just stares. Shep, who like me did not grow up with cats, also is wary of Fuzz. Read the book to find out whether dogs and cats can really live together!

Blaze is based on my friend’s Australian cattle dog, Cali. I loved the idea of bringing a working dog into the story, though the only work Cali does is to drag large sticks around on the beach near my friend’s house. Blaze is an actual cattle dog from a ranch in central Florida, and that gives her a different perspective on life and survival than the other dogs, who are all pets.

Shep finds other dogs trapped and in need of rescuing in the Drowned City, but the last one I’m going to talk about here is Odie the boxer puppy because he is based on my brother’s dog, Odie the boxer puppy! While I was writing the Dogs of the Drowned City, my brother, who always wanted a dog of his own, finally got his wish. He and his wife adopted Odie, whom they found on Petfinder. He was a tiny baby when they got him, but Odie has grown into quite a large dog—sixty-five pounds and still going! He’s super sweet and has more energy than a bolt of lightning. My brother, who’s a golfer, chips whiffle-golf-balls to him over the fence in their yard and Odie just zooms around chasing the little things as they roll. Also, Odie has the largest underbite of any dog I’ve ever met. Pete and Kerry have nothing on him!

Let me know if you want to know about any of the other dogs you meet in The Pack and I’ll do another blog about them. I hope you enjoy the next part of Shep’s adventure, and that of all of the dogs (and cats!) in Dogs of the Drowned City!