Over the next few years, and especially during the summer, I got a chance to spend individual time with each and every dog on an almost daily basis. I got to know and love all of their personalities, quirks and unique traits. There isn’t a single dog I don’t love as much as any other dog. There are dogs that can be a challenge, in that they get so excited to see you, they jump all over you. But how can you blame a dog for that? Because they are excited to see you? After a few months of it, you give in and find the humor and are touched with how thrilled these dogs are to see you, how enthusiastic they are.

Some dogs are sweet and gentle and they like to rub up against you. Other dogs bark to get your attention, some jump all over you and some flop on their backs for belly rubs. When people ask me now who my favorite dog is, I can honestly say I don’t have a favorite. I love each and every dog for who they are and for their own individual personalities.

It’s in the air. The mornings are getting cooler and the excitement is building. Training is about to begin and the dogs are ready. They’ve had a pretty relaxing summer and they are ready to get into teams. Puppies will get paired up with more seasoned leaders and they’ll start to be organized into leaders, point dogs and wheel dogs. The older dogs will get out with their friends and maybe be paired up with a new teammate, but the tried and true teams will stay together for now.

They’ll start out slow on short loops pulling a four wheeler, then they’ll build up to the twelve mile loop. Mornings will be filled with wildlife and frosty air. You can already see your breath some mornings. While the days warm up quickly, those first few hours are ripe for a good run.

Now, do some research. Find out what people wear, what they do. Incorporate some reality with your fantasy of the place. Take yourself out of the story and write it about a person of the opposite sex and how they would see the world. How does your world change if you are a man instead of a woman or a woman instead of a man?

Yesterday Red passed away of old age. He had been acting strange the day before, pacing his kennel and flinching when I went to touch him, which is very unlike Red. Normally Red prefers to sleep most of the day away or to come out with a tail wag and a quick hello before going back to napping. I sat with him for a while and felt his head and petted him. He didn’t seem to have any physical pain anywhere, but he was clearly anxious about something. He didn’t eat his food, which his friend Jack next to him appreciated as Jack got to eat an extra breakfast. The next morning Red appeared to be fine and back to his old self. Sara gave him some lovin’ in the morning, but by the afternoon he had passed.

It’s so hard to lose a good friend, especially a dog like Red. Red was a tough old man, who loved to be on the trail and run, or would come up and snuggle us. I will always remember Red with lots of love. With a hundred dogs of all ages, it’s inevitable that a dog will pass away, just as our friends and family do, but it is never easy.

Write about your most frightening experience - something that haunts you or terrifies you, could be a memory from childhood, something that happened as a teenager. The moment could be one of embarrassment, shame or fear. Write for 10 or 15 minutes.

Now take that story and place it somewhere in nature - the mountains, the desert, a forest or field, or even the ocean. Turn the people into animals. Take out any speech and replace it with movements and actions. See what you end up with.

I had the privilege to be on Tracie Hotchner’s ‘Dog Talk’ on NPR talking about frosty dogs in the middle of summer. The interview is about halfway through the clip -

http://www.traciehotchner.com/dt/podcasts/Dog_Talk_07_17_10.mp3

Yippee. Hopefully more people will realize how loved and how amazing these dogs are. My life lights up every day I get to spend with them!!!!

As part of trying to pass on some of the tools that have helped me survive in life, I started a workshop to integrate writing and nature. The first workshop took place this past week. I had a nine year old girl and her mother. We walked about twenty minutes to a gazebo overlooking a pond and river. The river gushed and birds tweeted and we took a few breaths and wrote about our surroundings. The next hour was filled with various exercises that got me out of my routine writing of Audrey Rose and pictures/writing of the dogs at Grizzle-T.

It was great to stretch the boundaries of where I have been writing and decided I had an idea for a new book potentially. Could be a lot of fun. So my advice: if you’re having trouble motivating with your writing, take a workshop or look up some writing exercises online. In the coming weeks I’ll be posting some exercises that were really helpful for me. Stay tuned!