Welcome Donna Andrews: Doggification

Some Random Favorite Things The Wednesday/Thursday Club

Welcome Donna Andrews: Doggification

By Liz, happy to welcome Donna Andrews back to the blog! I love that she’s always good for an awesome animal story – and she doesn’t disappoint today talking about seven Pomeranians…take it away, Donna!

Recently a reader asked me how many Pomeranians I had, and I had to confess that I don’t have any. No dogs at all, in fact.

Then why, the reader asked, are there now seven Pomeranians in your series? And what’s up with those two cute dogs you keep posting pictures of on social media?

Ah. Thereby hangs a tale.

My brother has two dogs: Ginger, 12, a Shih-tzu, and Maple, 7, a Pomeranian/Bichon mix. (I call her a Pom bitch.) I only live a couple of miles away, so if my brother, a clinical psychologist with a lively therapy practice, is having a busy day, I’m the backup dog-minder. It’s not a big chore for me to dash over to take the girls (as we call them) out for their midday or late-afternoon airing. In fact, I enjoy doing it. Makes a nice break in what is often a very quiet day, especially if I’m immersed in writing a draft. I often stick around after I’ve rewarded the girls with their treats and we keep each other company. I read a book or listen to a podcast with one or both of them on my lap or leaning against me.

Maple and Ginger

Ginger is a lady. Always has been. She’s quiet, well-behaved, self-contained–rather catlike. Maple is a wild thing. She likes nothing better than playing tug of war over a chew toy and then, when she wins, slamming it against the floor a few times, like a terrier killing a rat. Or eviscerating her toy–but she wants to be either in my lap or leaning against my leg while she rips the thing apart. And she’s jealous. Sometimes, if I pet Ginger, Maple will lunge and snap at Ginger. I am her property, and Ginger should know her place.

I don’t dare get a dog of my own. Maple would never forgive me. But it’s okay. I see my canine nieces all the time.

Maple

At the beginning of the pandemic, though, my brother and I made the decision to lock down separately. I missed him, and my nephews, and the girls. After a few months, we expanded our quarantine to include both households, and I was delighted to see them all again.

It was especially heartwarming to have the girls greet me with such enthusiasm that they twirled around in circles when I walked through the door. Of course, they do that nearly every time I arrive, whether I’ve been gone for months or only a few hours. Still heartwarming, every time.

But during that early stage of isolation, I was working on Murder Most Fowl, book 29 in my Meg Langslow series. The book had a plot thread in which Meg spots two unfamiliar birds devouring feed in the middle of her chicken flock. The intruders stand out, partly because they’re gray and white and the chickens are glossy black Sumatras. And also partly because they’re not chickens at all. They’re geese.

The following is a spoiler–but only for the subplot, not for the murder case: it turns out that Meg’s father has set his heart on getting some rare, heritage-breed geese–either Pilgrims or Pomeranians. (Yes, both are types of geese.) He’s found two Pomeranian goslings, but he wants a few more. And it turns out that he has mentioned this to Clarence Rutledge, Caerphilly’s large-hearted veterinarian, who spends much of his time rescuing animals from kill shelters and finding them homes. “I’ve got a batch of Pomeranians you can have,” Clarence exclaims. Unfortunately, Clarence missed the part about Dad wanting more geese, so in the middle of the murder investigation Meg comes home to find that Clarence has dropped off a litter of seven adorable Pomeranian puppies.

Ginger

When I sat down to write the next book, I realized I had to account for the Pomeranians. And they’re darned cute, so wouldn’t it be nice to keep a few of them around? I already have Spike, the small evil one, and Tinkerbell, Meg’s brother’s Irish wolfhound, in the cast, so it seemed unlikely that Meg would want to add to their canine menagerie. But I liked the idea of them, so I decided to have them all adopted by Meg’s friends and family. Rose Noire, the cousin who lives with Meg’s family, takes one. So does Kevin, the cyber-expert nephew who lives in her basement. Her cousin Horace and her good friend Aida take puppies, and since they’re both Caerphilly deputies, when they’re on shift they often drop their pups off at Meg’s house to keep them from getting lonely. Robyn Smith, the rector of Trinity Episcopal and Ms. Ellie Draper, the town librarian, also take Poms, and the final one is given to Adam, youngest of the three orphaned grandsons that Chief Burke and his wife are raising.

This seemed to me a highly satisfactory solution. In any given book–in any given scene–I can have as many dogs as I want, for either humor or plot purposes. Since Horace, the county’s lone forensic specialist, has been training some of them as scent dogs, I can even get them involved in the murder investigations. Rose Noire’s and Aida’s pups are showing great promise as search-and-rescue dogs, and Horace’s own dog, who seems to prefer finding dead bodies, is quickly becoming a very useful cadaver dog.

And you know the best thing about modeling a batch of characters after my canine nieces? These days, if I go over and hang out with them for an hour or so, it’s no longer goofing off. It’s research!