A quick note
I discovered that Substack sends out emails with links to the Substack newsletters I chose to recommend. Yuk - I didn’t know they would do that, so I’ve cleared my list of recommendations. If there’s a particular newsletter that fits the topic of the day, I’ll put a link in the section that it’s related to.
That said, here’s a recommendation that doesn’t fit neatly into my three categories - but it’s worth breaking format “rules” for -
Support local bookstores - even if the nearest one is miles away. A great alternative to shopping for books on Amazon, Bookshop.com lets you pick the independent book store you’d like to support and sends them the full profit from your book - 30% of the books price. I’ve tried it, I like it.
Shelter Tales
Generally, I have two or three dogs I’m working with at the shelter at any given time, and of those, one is my priority. When one of the three is adopted, I take on another dog. If my priority dog is adopted, the others move up in the ranking. I didn’t set out to have this system, but it has developed over time and works out well for me. The first dog I made my priority was Belle.
These days, my priority dog is Bailey. I met her back in September 2022 and had an idea I’d work with her, but it took her a long time to move up in the standings. Back then, my priority dog Gils had just been adopted, but I got busy with Bailey’s puppy, Buddy. Bailey’s litter had been through a Parvo isolation, and they were all extremely shy when they came out to the adoption kennel.
Then Karen got my attention, and her litter mates Lola and Max. Finally in December I started working consistently with Bailey, but she wasn’t yet at that top spot. There were Mabel and Spot to work with. Now, finally, Bailey’s my priority - with only one exception since December, if I go to the shelter, I work with Bailey.
I’m using the word “priority dog,” but it’d be more accurate to say, “my dog.” When I make the emotional shift from “one of the dogs I work with,” to “my dog,” our visits take on a different quality for me, and maybe for the dog as well. I feel that I see them more clearly in some way, which is about as good a description as I can come up with right now.
Something I’m seeing more clearly about Bailey is how smart she is. I just started her on '“leave it,” and she’s pretty consistent in her response - leaving what ever it is alone.
But she’s not responding to me saying “leave it” just yet, because I’ve barely used the verbal cue with her. Instead, I’m trying a method of training I’ve learned from watching Jean Donaldson’s DVD series, “Dog Training 101.” : give the dog a puzzle and let them solve it. Here’s how it works: I show Bailey a treat in my hand and when she moves her nose towards it, I close my hand.
She learned incredibly quickly that if she didn’t go for the treat, but looked at me instead, she’d get the treat. (One of the first things I work on with a dog is teaching them to look at me; Bailey had this half of solving the puzzle already in her toolkit.)
I love this way of training cues like “leave it” and “wait” because the dog learns the behavior first and their response doesn’t depend on you saying the cue. They just do it. With more training, I know Bailey can get to the point where if I drop something, she won’t go for it. That’s a great safety mechanism to build for the dog.
Resources
Jean Donaldson - Dog Training 101 Donaldson is big into counting out reps, and it seemed too regimented for me when I was first watching, but I’ve gotten used to it. And I see what good results I get using her methods, so I’m following her lead on it.
Out in the Yard
It’s a rainy late-April day. We’ve had days here and there in the 70s, but then it was back to ice in the bird bath for two mornings in a row this week. But this reminder of what mid-March can be like is reason to be grateful for a cold rainy day as April comes to a close.
At the Writing Table
When I was looking for comps for my own work in progress, a novel titled Lucky, I came across a trio of books I really like.In the photo they’re pretty much in the order I liked them, from left to right. I loved The People We Keep and will use it for a comp title. I can totally see myself rereading A Town Called Solace. And I admired the ambition of The Night of Many Endings, and was ready to love it, but the pace near the end seemed out of keeping with the beginning of the book, or maybe just out of keeping with a pace I like.
Resources
Literature-map.com offers an intriguing tool for finding authors whose books are similar to those of other authors. As a sample to get a nice screen shot to show you, I tried Charles Dickens. But the other authors names floated around for so long I gave up watching for them to finally land.
I love Margaret Drabble, so I tried her next. I figured she’d be less complicated to compare to other authors, and I was right. Here’s what the program came up with:
I found a few other authors here whose books I’ve loved/admired: Gail Godwin, Sigrid Nunez, and Penelope Lively.
If you are looking for comp titles, or just want to expand the universe of your reading, this tool can help.
Till next time, be well, be safe, and take care of your eyes.