Billy, the Sailor Dog

(Update: If you'd like to read the story, click here.)
At long last I wrote a little story. I was beginning to think the writing well had dried up. Quite a few stories were started, and dropped on the literary roadside. But then, over Christmas, I suddenly came up with the idea to write a little story about the dogs of Oriental, having some doggish adventure. Our town dogs are so interesting it required little work to flesh out their characters, and little work to come up with a plot. The story nearly wrote itself.
Of course, Beau and Sandy played prominently in the story line.

Beauregard and Sandy

In fact, about twelve dogs and one cat enter the story, all of them real, most of them with their real names. Only Billy, the sailor dog who arrives in town, is fictional.
 Anyway, I decided I'd better begin gathering photos of my characters, so at the farmer's market on Saturday, I snapped a couple. This sweet girl is in the middle of the fun dog pack ~

Bonnie

These two gals don't actually participate in the plot, but they do pass by in their owner's bike basket.

Sissy and Sassy ... or, Sophie and Sammie

I'll be editing the story, and giving copies to the dog owners, I think, most of whom are friends of mine. If I think it's readable for general enjoyment, I'll put it here for you all too. It's fun to write about animals. With humans, you usually change their names. It's hard changing someone's name, especially if the name they already have is absolutely perfect for the person they are. But with animals? I felt free to use their real names, and the pet characters seemed very happy with that choice. They settled happily into their fictional duties on the page and performed for me quite well!