It’s a dog’s life for this author

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I always thought being an author would be glamorous, but since I’ve become an author, I’ve found that’s not always the case.

Actually, it’s rarely glamorous.

Sometimes it’s downright dirty.

Here’s the dirt:

Last week I took my dog Gracie out to our local dog park to do a photo shoot for the cover of Saved by Gracie, my humorous memoir of how she’s helped me overcome a host of anxieties.  The book will be published next spring by Authentic Publishers, so we needed to move quickly on getting the cover done.

Our photographer, Justin, met us in the early morning at the park – the skies blue, the leaves bright green, and the thigh-high prairie grasses shining with dew.

As in a lot of dew.

As in so much dew, my jeans were soaked by about the fifth run through the grasses with Gracie.

“Now run back this way,” Justin called out to us.

Again, I ran through the grasses, calling to Gracie, trying to position her so Justin could get the action shot he was looking for.

Gracie, however, finally put her paws down.  She sat on the trail and watched me do the running instead.

I imagined she was thinking “What the heck is wrong with Jan? We run the trail AROUND the park, not through the same forty feet of it back and forth, back and forth. Geez, I hope she’s not dangerous.”

After a few more passes, flapping my arms at Gracie, trying to jolly her up into running, I realized she was done.

I also realized I looked like an idiot, jumping in the grasses and calling “let’s run! come get me!”

“I think she’s tired,” I panted to Justin, walking over to him and trying to catch my breath.

“Let’s try some shots of the two of you,” he suggested. “Over here, with this tree in the background.”

I kneeled in the grass next to Gracie, only it wasn’t grass. It was wet dirt. As in mud.

“Put your arms around her,” Justin instructed.

I did, and she immediately turned to lick my face and rub her wet coat against my sweater.

My favorite sweater.

I looked down at the mud now ground into the fabric and whispered to Gracie that if she’d ruined my sweater, it was coming out of her treat budget.

“Now lay down next to her,” Justin said, clicking away.

I obeyed.

Good Jan, I thought. Good human.

Gracie immediately rolled on her back in delight. One of her very favorite things is to roll in the grass, and if it’s actually mud, that’s even better. And to have her human right there with her in the mud, well, a dog’s life just doesn’t get any better than that.

My authoring days have gone to the dogs…