Countdown to

Hot Target

12/23/04

Gay 101

5 days (and counting to Hot Target, in stores on December 28th)

Note from Suz:  Today's countdown page is titled:

How Lori Foster Changed My Life

This story starts well over a year ago, when I received an email from fellow author, Lori Foster.

She was doing a fund-raiser, she told me in this email, for her local animal shelter.  Would I donate a signed book or two to this worthy cause?

I quickly zapped her back an email.  I have enormous respect for Lori, and I've always enjoyed seeing her at romance writers conferences.  "Yes, of course," I wrote.  "I'll send something right away."

After sending the email, I looked more closely at the information she had sent to me.  You see, she'd sent the  URL for her local shelter's website.  So I clicked on the link, and read about the dogs and cats that had been brought there, that were looking to be adopted.  There were other links on the website, too.  Something called Petfinder.com had an entire search engine type set-up, into which you could input the type of dog or cat you were looking for, plus your area of the country...

Hmmm, I thought.  I'd be thinking for a number of years that my family should adopt a dog.  An older dog.  An already-trained dog.  Perhaps one whose owner had gone into a nursing home...?  (What happens to those dogs, I'd always wondered...)

I'm allergic to dogs, but growing up, my family had had a Schnauzer.  And I knew that poodles were also hypo-allergenic.  Best yet were Schoodles -- a schnauzer/poodle mix.  (I'm not a fan of pure bred dogs -- they tend to be too high strung.)

So I typed poodle and Schnauzer and Schnoodle into the search feature.  And I entered my area -- Boston, Massachusetts.

Bingo!  I was presented with literally dozens of individual dogs looking for homes.  In fact, there was something called "the Poodle Rescue league" right outside of Boston.  I was presented with lists and pictures and descriptions of dogs (including Max, who looked adorable) that were waiting to be adopted.

I printed out some information, and an adoption application, and showed it to Ed.  I believe his exact words were "What, are you NUTS?"  And then he said, "Sleep on it, okay?"

Six months passed.

Then one day I cleaned my office and found the pages I'd printed out from the shelter website.  Poor little Max-the-poodle looked back at me with his soulful brown eyes.  

I brought the info back downstairs to Ed.  "It's been six months, and I still think we should look into adopting a dog," I announced.  

We were on the verge of leaving for the FLASHPOINT tour -- we would be out of town for nearly three weeks.

Not the right time to think about adopting anything.  But my daughter Melanie and I went back to the search site to see if Max was still there.  (I doubted it, but ya never know.)

He was not.  In fact, there was a serious shortage of poodles.  We typed in Schnauzer, though, and DING! 

A picture came up on screen of "Sugar and Spice," two 8-year-old female (spayed) miniature Schnauzers who were so well trained they rang a bell when they wanted to go outside.  (So, okay, that wasn't quite true -- or at least we never figured out what kind of bell they rang. But they communicate their going outside needs quite nicely just the same!)  They were currently living at the Marblehead Animal Shelter, because their owner had died.  

Okay, we said.  Here's what we'll do.  We'll take a drive up to Marblehead, to visit the shelter, see how this adoption thing works.  Because, yeah, this Sugar and Spice seem really cute and perfect, but we don't want two dogs.  AND we're about to leave town.

BIG MISTAKE!  LOL!  (But a very, very GOOD mistake!)

We arrive at the shelter and are greeted at the door by Sugar and Spice.  They are friendly and furry and desperate for affection.  

And yes, four days later, we bring them home.  

The rest, as they say, is history.  

We've had them for eight months now.  It took 'em a while to really believe that they were here to stay -- they'd been bounced around from so many different locations.  And when we first got them, Sugar was seriously grieving.  Spice was slightly more able to roll with the flow.

(Although we've learned not to separate them for very long.  Spice's heart starts to pound, she gets so anxious...)

It was only recently that Sugar really started eating again.  She suddenly gained two pounds.  Wham.  We'd always thought she was the littler of the pair, but no.  

They are remarkably smart and friendly and very, very loving.  

But every now and then they'll come trotting into the kitchen (they move kind of like synchronized swimmers -- LOL!), a small herd of doggies, and I'll think "How the heck did we go from a no-dog house to a two-dog house?!?  It's all Lori Foster's fault!"  LOL!

They needed us, but you know, we needed them, too.  There's nothing like unconditional dog-love.  (We call it "happy butt."  We come home and everyone has a serious case of "happy butt."  Including us!)

Thanks, Lori!  (From all of us!)

Photos:  Top:  Sugar (left) and Spice after a day at the beauty parlor.  Note their fancy scarves, courtesy of the doggie-beauty-salon.  Sugar couldn't care less about the scarf, but Spice still has hers on as I write this -- over a week later!  LOL!

Lori Foster and me, at a FLASHPOINT booksigning in Ohio!

Ed with the ladies -- Spice (left) and Sugar (top).  He is The Great and Wonderful Ed-God, aka that guy who walks them.  <g>

Me with Spice (left) and Sugar (right).  When we first got them, Sugar was very upset at all the upheaval in her life and had, apparently, lost quite a bit of weight.  It's only been recently that she's suddenly put on two extra pounds (and ya know, when you only weigh 14 pounds, going up to 16 is quite a huge step!).  She's not overweight, but she has become The Bigger Dog.  Spice, however, has the bigger personality.  She's kind of like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors, except instead of saying "Feed me!" she says "PET ME!"  

It's really been interesting to adopt dogs who have lived an entire lifetime with someone else.  There have been times when we know we're not doing something right (there's something they used to do with a towel, but what?!?).  It took awhile to get into a routine -- and they definitely like routine!  But Spice is very smart -- she's got a huge vocabulary and after we overcame some territorial issues (lots of puddles in the house until they became confident that this was their home!), and set some rules about exactly where in the house it was okay to go to the bathroom (nowhere!!!! LOL!), we've all settled in quite nicely.  (Sugar is smart, too, but she's very nervous and comes across as slightly ADD.  She reminds me of the Ellen Degeneres fish in FINDING NEMO:  "Hi, I'm Sugar, how are you?   Hi, I'm Sugar, how are you?  Hi, I'm Sugar..."  LOL!)

Herd of Doggies photo -- Spice (left) and Sugar in the lead!

Bottom photo:  Spice (left) and Sugar with ears on full alert! <g>

Gay 101:  Tolerance is a Fabulous Value!

Some facts about Alfred Kinsey:

That's all for now!  Be sure to come back for tomorrow's installment in the Countdown to HOT TARGET.

See you tomorrow.

 

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