Like every dog lover, I was completely charmed by my new puppy’s antics. The sight of my six-month-old Westie, Max, prancing across the living room, the toilet paper she proudly clasped in her jaws creating a fifteen-foot streamer behind her, made me wish I had my camera.
Maybe I wasn’t able to capture that moment on film. But years later, as I sat in front of my computer, wracking my brain for something cute for one of my canine characters to do, that image popped right back into my mind. Maybe I hadn’t managed to preserve it visually, but I was able to do something even better: immortalize that moment in print, conjuring up a similar image for thousands of readers.
While I’ve been writing novels since the 1980s, it wasn’t until ten years ago that I came up with the idea of writing a mystery series that featured a veterinarian and her entourage of dogs, cats, a parrot, and even a lizard. I was eager to try writing mystery novels, a genre I’d never tackled before, and wanted to add some element that would make my books fun for me to write and fun for mystery fans to read.
Featuring animals as on-going characters seemed like a great way to accomplish both those objectives.
Max was the first muse who popped into my head. Not that she was my first dog. As a kid, the canine in my life had been George, an alpha male Wire Fox Terrier. George was known to scale the trunks of towering oak trees and tight-rope walk across branches in pursuit of squirrels, which he despised with a vengeance. But a macho doggie like him preferred the company of my father, probably because Dad, a former baseball player, never, ever tired of throwing a tennis ball.
Max was my first dog. She and I lived in a one-bedroom apartment together, sharing every aspect of our lives. We ate together, slept together, took long walks together, and curled up on the couch watching TV or reading together. (Actually, she wasn’t much of a reader. But she made up for it with her cuddling ability.) Max and I had a bond that, between you and me, made having a human baby years later seem like old hat.
So I loved the idea of my heroine, Jessie Popper, having a Westie named Max, but I wanted her to have a second dog, too. I asked my son, then a teen-ager, for ideas.
“How about a Dalmatian named Lou?” he suggested, explaining that the lead singer of his favorite rock group, Sublime, had a Dalmatian named Lou Dog who served as the band’s mascot.
Lou the Dalmatian was born.
While I was well-versed in Westie behavior – and the terrier personality, in general, thanks to the two terriers I’d known and loved – I frankly didn’t know much about how other breeds acted. Fortunately, around that time, my stepson, Sam, introduced a new dog into the family: Bailey, an American Bulldog.
I was fascinated by how different Bailey was from the terriers I’d known. She didn’t dig up the backyard until it looked like a golf course, she didn’t have a personal vendetta against squirrels, and she was actually capable of sitting still for more than three seconds. In fact, she was on the shy side.
Bailey instantly became my inspiration for Lou.
Developing the interaction between Max and Lou, my heroine Jessie Popper’s two dogs, was an interesting challenge. I’d never had two dogs at the same time, so I didn’t have firsthand knowledge of how they were likely to interact. So instead of calling upon real-life experience, I did the next most obvious thing: I modeled their relationship on a human relationship.
In my books, I made Max the tough, feisty one, even though a Westie is a fraction of a Dalmatian’s size. Lou, meanwhile, tends to hover in the background, looking to Max for his cues. I also made both of my fictional dogs male, figuring a same-sex couple would be simpler to write about.
Readers often ask me if I base my characters on real people. My stock answer is, “No – because no real person has all the characteristics I need to create an interesting character.” Perhaps I should start pointing out that there are exceptions – but only if those real-life sources of inspiration happen to have four paws and a cold wet nose.
Cynthia Baxter is the author of the Reigning Cats & Dogs Mystery Series, published by Bantam Books (www.cynthiabaxter.com). The ninth book in the series, Crossing the Lion, was published in August 2010. Baxter lives in a New York suburb but has been a frequent visitor to the San Francisco Bay Area since she and her husband lived in Menlo Park for a year. They intend to one day be permanent Bay Area residents.
side bar:
Like every dog lover, I was completely charmed by my new puppy’s antics. The sight of my six-month-old Westie, Max, prancing across the living room, the toilet paper she proudly clasped in her jaws creating a fifteen-foot streamer behind her, made me wish I had my camera.
Maybe I wasn’t able to capture that moment on film. But years later, as I sat in front of my computer, wracking my brain for something cute for one of my canine characters to do, that image popped right back into my mind. Maybe I hadn’t managed to preserve it visually, but I was able to do something even better: immortalize that moment in print, conjuring up a similar image for thousands of readers.
While I’ve been writing novels since the 1980s, it wasn’t until ten years ago that I came up with the idea of writing a mystery series that featured a veterinarian and her entourage of dogs, cats, a parrot, and even a lizard. I was eager to try writing mystery novels, a genre I’d never tackled before, and wanted to add some element that would make my books fun for me to write and fun for mystery fans to read.
Featuring animals as on-going characters seemed like a great way to accomplish both those objectives.
Max was the first muse who popped into my head. Not that she was my first dog. As a kid, the canine in my life had been George, an alpha male Wire Fox Terrier. George was known to scale the trunks of towering oak trees and tight-rope walk across branches in pursuit of squirrels, which he despised with a vengeance. But a macho doggie like him preferred the company of my father, probably because Dad, a former baseball player, never, ever tired of throwing a tennis ball.
Max was my first dog. She and I lived in a one-bedroom apartment together, sharing every aspect of our lives. We ate together, slept together, took long walks together, and curled up on the couch watching TV or reading together. (Actually, she wasn’t much of a reader. But she made up for it with her cuddling ability.) Max and I had a bond that, between you and me, made having a human baby years later seem like old hat.
So I loved the idea of my heroine, Jessie Popper, having a Westie named Max, but I wanted her to have a second dog, too. I asked my son, then a teen-ager, for ideas.
“How about a Dalmatian named Lou?” he suggested, explaining that the lead singer of his favorite rock group, Sublime, had a Dalmatian named Lou Dog who served as the band’s mascot.
Lou the Dalmatian was born.
While I was well-versed in Westie behavior – and the terrier personality, in general, thanks to the two terriers I’d known and loved – I frankly didn’t know much about how other breeds acted. Fortunately, around that time, my stepson, Sam, introduced a new dog into the family: Bailey, an American Bulldog.
I was fascinated by how different Bailey was from the terriers I’d known. She didn’t dig up the backyard until it looked like a golf course, she didn’t have a personal vendetta against squirrels, and she was actually capable of sitting still for more than three seconds. In fact, she was on the shy side.
Bailey instantly became my inspiration for Lou.
Developing the interaction between Max and Lou, my heroine Jessie Popper’s two dogs, was an interesting challenge. I’d never had two dogs at the same time, so I didn’t have firsthand knowledge of how they were likely to interact. So instead of calling upon real-life experience, I did the next most obvious thing: I modeled their relationship on a human relationship.
In my books, I made Max the tough, feisty one, even though a Westie is a fraction of a Dalmatian’s size. Lou, meanwhile, tends to hover in the background, looking to Max for his cues. I also made both of my fictional dogs male, figuring a same-sex couple would be simpler to write about.
Readers often ask me if I base my characters on real people. My stock answer is, “No – because no real person has all the characteristics I need to create an interesting character.” Perhaps I should start pointing out that there are exceptions – but only if those real-life sources of inspiration happen to have four paws and a cold wet nose.
Cynthia Baxter is the author of the Reigning Cats & Dogs Mystery Series, published by Bantam Books (www.cynthiabaxter.com). The ninth book in the series, Crossing the Lion, was published in August 2010. Baxter lives in a New York suburb but has been a frequent visitor to the San Francisco Bay Area since she and her husband lived in Menlo Park for a year. They intend to one day be permanent Bay Area residents.
SIDE BAR (excerpt)
Excerpt from
Who’s Kitten Who?
By Cynthia Baxter
I’d decided on the way home that I’d use the time I had before my soon-to-be in-laws arrived to make brownies. Which meant the first order of the day was locating my eight-inch-by-eight-inch square brownie pan, which was so rarely used that I tended to stick it in the most out-of-the-way place I could think of.
If I remembered correctly, that happened to be under the sink. Sure enough, there it was, tucked away with a pie tin that had never seen the inside of an oven and a Bundt pan I’d gotten free with the purchase of some cake mix.
Before I could reach it, however, I had to pull out a gallon of paint Nick and I had bought a few weeks earlier after deciding that a fresh coat in a cheerful color was exactly what the kitchen needed. But as soon as we opened the can, we saw that that particular shade of orange, one that had looked so warm and inviting in the store, was much too bright.
I moved it out of the way by putting it on the counter. But Nick and I must not have closed the lid tightly enough when we’d stuck it under the sink, because when I bumped it with my arm and it fell onto the linoleum floor with a loud bang, the cover flew off and bounced across the room. I watched with horror as thick orange liquid sloshed across the floor, splattering into long, menacing fingers that reached into every corner.
“No!” I wailed.
My two dogs, who had pretty much been minding their own business up until that point, interpreted my outburst as a cry for help. Either that or they thought something involving food was going on.
At any rate, they both came loping in. Even though I instantly knew what was about to happen, there was no way to stop it, since there was no actual door in the doorway. Within seconds, my kitchen floor was covered with orange paw prints, both Westie-size and Dalmatian-size.
“Max, get out of there!” I shrieked. “Lou, stop!”
Max, my Westie, froze, looking up at me guiltily. As for Lou, the sharpness of my tone sent him skittering across the wet floor. Before either of us knew what was happening, he slipped and ended up lying on his side.
In addition to large orange smears all over the floor in front of the refrigerator, I now had a large, gangly dog who was orange along the left side of his body.
What’s black and white and orange all over… I thought morosely.
I scooped up Max, figuring I’d minimize the damage by getting my dogs out of there as fast as I could. It would have been a good plan except for the fact that his fluffy white paws had become fluffy paintbrushes that turned my shirt, pants, and most of the skin on my arms and legs the same bright color that everything else was quickly turning.
Lou began barking furiously, no doubt sensing how upset I was and not having a clue that his canine enthusiasm was part of the reason.
“Quiet!” I barked back.
His sweet face tightened into an expression of remorse. I could have handled having hurt his feelings, just a little bit. What I couldn’t handle was the fact that he decided to try getting back in my good graces by sitting down in the middle of the paint-covered floor and holding up one orange paw as if responding to the command, “Shake.”
From the book, Who’s Kitten Who by Cynthia Baxter. Copyright © 2007 by Cynthia Baxter. Reprinted by arrangement with Bantam Dell, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
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