I'm Excited to Share My New Book with You!

My brand-new book!

The creation of this book has been a wild ride. A project like this involves so much more than finding the words for the stories, but let’s start there. Throughout this book, you will meet many of the LGDs I have shared my life with, presented in a forthright fashion. But this is real life, and as we all know, life is messy. In every chapter, as I told the story, I had to drop back into those times emotionally. Over these last fourteen years, there have been many ah-ha moments, many times of wonder, humor, and embarrassment. There has been tragedy and loss, more than for most people who have LGDs, because of the number of dogs that I have had here on the ranch.

In telling some of these stories, the years slipped away, and I was once again right there in a whelping box, surrounded by a pile of puppies, amazed and delighted by the experience. And then there were the many times when I would walk out among the dogs thinking I had a plan and that I knew what I was doing, only to be tuned up by the dogs as they let me know they had a different lesson for me. There were the times when I ran headlong into a situation I did not know how to make better for the dog, how to protect the dog. Tears abound in some of these stories. Every time that I worked on Milan’s story, I had so many tears in my eyes that I could not see the keyboard, and yet there is wonder in his story.

I wrote this book to preserve my memories of my time with my dogs. As time marches on, I have worried that some of the sharpness of my memories would fade into broader generalizations. I was not willing to take that chance. But here is another piece, another reason the book exists. As an instructor, I like to teach using stories of my life as a student of my dogs. I prefer to let the story teach the lesson, as I am not comfortable with telling a student or client what they “should” do. Instead, I share stories of moments with my dogs that helped me find training and management answers that made our lives better, letting them serve as examples to follow. Can LGD owners glean something consequential from these stories? Often, that is the case.

When I wrote this book, I recounted my favorite stories first, the ones I was comfortable revisiting. My gifted editor, Eileen Anderson of Bright Friends Productions, asked me to include the year the stories took place in the file names so that she could keep track of them a little better. Books develop a life of their own, and they grow up as they will. I didn't have a goal for how many words the book would contain, how many chapters it would have, or even whether the stories would all be happy ones. As I kept writing the chapters, I noticed obvious gaps in the timeline. Why? Was it really okay with me to only talk about the fun times, the times that the dogs made me look good, the times of clarity for me? Well, no, obviously, so back I went to the stories I had been avoiding.

In my time with my dogs, I have been very conscious of, very sure that, these were indeed the good old days. I am glad that I took the time to smell the roses along the way. I have been blessed to live on this beautiful ranch with my husband of thirty years, whom I adore, surrounded by a pile of white dogs and the rest of our animal menagerie. Not many people get to live like this. I feel a responsibility to share my good fortune with others, to share the gift of this ranch, and to tell the tales of my journey with my dogs. What would it all mean, in the cosmic scope of things, if it were only my personal journey, staying only in my mind and experience? That just isn’t good enough for me. So, here we are, with my book in front of the whole wide world. Will it matter to anyone? Will it resonate with anyone? I don’t know, but it was important to me to immortalize my dogs and my experiences in this book. And there are still stories in my head because, after all, this book visits only a fraction of the incredible livestock guardian dogs that have been in my life so far.

Having crafted my stories, what happens next in the process of writing a book, you may ask? Here is my heavy sigh. I edit, and I edit again; many times, in fact. I sent the book to my proofreaders, a generous group of friends I can count on to be truthful. I am grateful to them for their time and support! After hashing and re-hashing all of this, Eileen formatted the book. This became another challenge as we decided the book's style and the myriad decisions that came with it.

When I began this project, I had no plan to include photography. After all, a gifted writer can paint a picture with words. But this book became something with appeal to readers beyond those with LGD experience. One of my proofreaders, who had never met an LGD, asked me for photos so she could get to know the dogs a little better. She simply wanted to know what an LGD looked like! That was a fair question! When I shared a few photos with her, she told me that getting to know the dogs through photos was really special for her. Well, this was like Lay's potato chips, right, where you can’t have only one photo?

From there, I felt that every chapter needed a photo. Some photos came from my life archives with my dogs, taken with my cell phone. Marilyn Gregory of Dream Riders Photography took two of the photos during photo shoots here at the ranch over the years. I had the opportunity to have Sharon Westerguard of Sharon Westerguard Photography do two professional photo shoots recently, so I have wonderful photos of my current dogs. I am grateful to her, and I know you will enjoy her creative photos. I could not have known that Cameo, one of the most beloved dogs of my life, would leave me so soon. I cherish the photos Sharon took of her with me during what were close to Cameo’s final days.

And then, after so many revisions and considerations, I found my finger hovering over the “publish now” button as a self-publishing author on Kindle Self-Publishing by Amazon. This is the second book that I have published in this way. The first time, I remember how my finger trembled as it hovered over the button that would share my book with the world. This time, I had a little more confidence in myself, and a lot less on the line, because I wasn't trying to promote myself as a trainer. I do hope the book will lead LGD owners to my online courses and other educational content that I have painstakingly created over the years, but if not, that will be okay; I will be at peace with whatever comes.

You just cannot know, there are no adequate words to describe, how it feels to me to be able to walk out of my door each and every morning and into the lives of my dogs. Where is a person’s purpose in life written? I don’t know, and I know I am a small fish in a very large puddle, but my life is my dogs, and paying forward what they teach me is a purpose in my life.

Take from my stories what lifts you up, what empowers you, what brings out the gentle side of you. I hope you enjoy my book and this snapshot of my life with guardian dogs thus far.

You can buy the print version of my book on Amazon, for now. Watch for a Special Edition on my website. Please leave an honest review or email me your thoughts. Thank you! Enjoy!