The Power of Canine Love in Literature: A Conversation with Author J Wynn Rousuck

If you're an animal lover, particularly a dog enthusiast, then you will surely appreciate the profound love and inspiration author J Wynn Rousuck draws from our furry friends. Our latest podcast episode explores how her childhood experiences attending dog shows with her AKC judge father blossomed into a deep appreciation for dogs, influencing her life and her writing.
Rousuck's narrative is rich with heartwarming tales of her adventures in the world of dogs. One particularly touching recollection is of rescuing her adorable dog, Zippy, from Baltimore's rough streets. The experiences with Zippy, a dog that became a beloved member of her family, influenced her storytelling, shaping the quirky Boston terrier character in her latest novel, "Please Write: A Novel in Letters" and revealing how dogs often provide vital support during tough times.
The discussion also takes a turn towards the world of literature and creativity. The author shares her journey of rediscovering her creativity through writing about dogs. The episode shines a light on the unique influence her mentor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, had on her character development and storytelling. Rousuck's background as a theater critic and her love for researching famous pet owners add another layer of depth to her narrative.
One highlight of the episode is the exploration of Rousuck's book, a story narrated through letters between two dogs and their owner. This novel is not only a heartwarming story of the bond between humans and dogs but also a profound journey through loss and grief. The author's reading of an excerpt from the book is a powerful testament to the impact of the story on its readers, including the publisher who adopted a rescue dog after reading it.
Whether you're a dog lover, an avid reader, or a rescue advocate, this episode is bound to stir your emotions with its powerful storytelling and the joy of rescue. It invites you to take a closer look at the world of dogs and the impact they can have on our lives and our creativity. So, prepare for a tail-wagging adventure that will make you want to curl up with your furry friend and a good book. Tune in, subscribe, share with fellow pet lovers, and embark on this heartstring-tugging journey that celebrates our fur

Chapters

• 0:00 Loving Dogs and Writing Novels
• 13:17 Writing and the Power of Rescue Dogs
• 21:08 Book Concept
• 35:03 Animal Shelters
• 44:26 Judy, an Author and Dog Lover

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, my fellow animal lovers, for all of you listening in the United States, happy Thanksgiving. I am coming to you with a new episode and very special. I think it's good timing for you all to hear this episode, my interview with Jay Wynne Russick. She is a writer, a theater critic and now an author of the very fun and heartwarming book please write a novel in letters. I really enjoy meeting her and talking to her about her love for dogs and how she grew up with dogs in her life, literally from the day she was born, because her dad was an AKC dog show judge. So she attended dog shows throughout her life and had so many amazing dogs in her family because of it. But she also learned the value and importance of rescuing dogs and she tells that story the story of her rescuing her dog Zippy off the streets of Baltimore, in her new novel.

Speaker 1: 1:07

I think you all are really gonna enjoy this conversation and I think it's great timing because for those of you here in the United States you know that the official happenings today after the Macy's Thanksgiving parade is the dog show that is shown. But you'll get to hear some of her experience growing up attending dog shows and also her experience being a dog mom, being a rescue dog mom, and how all of that played into her writing this novel. So I really hope you into its conversation, hope you enjoyed this episode and for all of my friends, fellow animal lovers and listeners here in the United States, happy Thanksgiving. Hello my friends and fellow animal lovers, welcome to another episode of the story of my pet podcast. I am very excited to welcome my new guest today, jay Wyn Russick.

Speaker 2: 2:06

Hello and welcome to the podcast thank you, I'm delighted to be here. I really admire the work that you do thank you very much.

Speaker 1: 2:14

I appreciate that. So we are here to talk about your new novel called please write a novel and letters, but before we get into that, I want to talk a little bit about how animals, and specifically dogs, have been such an important part of your life animals were a part of my life even before I was born in utero, because my father was an AKC dog judge.

Speaker 2: 2:40

That was his lifelong hobby. He started out judging Boston terriers there's a Boston terrier figures prominently in my book and then he branched out into other dogs in non-sporting. At the time I was born my parents had the greatest show dog they ever had. It was a Boston terrier named champion morsels Bonnie May 48, best in shows, never shown under the same judge twice. And when I was born and sometimes I say they only had me because at the time they couldn't find another dog they really liked, but they were very worried that the dog would be jealous. I think a lot of parents would be worried about the baby. But so my parents hired a handler and the dog went all through shows at North and South America for three years until they felt I was mature enough to handle the dog and not bother the dog. And then that came. That dog came home and was my first dog, bonnie, and I reacted to her, I think, the way most little children would. I thought this was just the most marvelous creature to enter my life and by then I was already going to dog shows.

Speaker 2: 3:44

I went to dog shows from the time I was a toddler and my father would seat me in obedience because it was more interesting to a child. They didn't have quite as many events as they do now and I would sit there all day, happy as this could be. And one time we came home from a dog show and my mother was in the kitchen making dinner and I took all of my toys, stuffed dogs, because I didn't have many dolls, didn't care for dogs like dolls. I wanted dogs and I lined them all up in the living room and then I ran into the kitchen. I didn't say anything and then I went back into the living room and then I came back in the kitchen and I said to my mother they all stayed. So that was my lesson from obedience and I have to say it's the best I ever did with dog.

Speaker 2: 4:30

Later on had one of Bonnie's puppies. That was the dog throughout most of my childhood and then, when I turned 16, my parents gave me a puppy for my 16th birthday and that puppy was named Judy's punch. Punch was a wild man. So then I went off to college and to grad school and by the time I was hired by the Baltimore Sun. I didn't have a dog and I didn't have a dog for a while in Baltimore and that was really a huge gap in my life. I was very friendly with people in my apartment building who did have dogs, including one lovely lady who had a Boston terrier just drew me like a magnet, and when I finally did get a dog, I got a Boston, and that dog actually was very interesting.

Speaker 2: 5:16

That dog was called Woodrow and when Woodrow was about a year and a half old he had a seizure, a grand mal seizure, and this was a time when there really weren't emergency vet clinics and 24-hour vets, and I found a very good bet, though it took a little while. One of the reasons I think he was so good is he knew when to refer you to a specialist. He referred me to the University of Pennsylvania, which is about an hour and a half drive from Baltimore. They wanted to use the dog for research and they had something that they wanted to try on the dog and I said how many dogs have you tried this on? And they said they're a few in Germany and I said no, but the epilepsy wasn't being controlled and so finally I said okay and the work that they did with that dog. I would bring him up there on various intervals, kept the dog alive until past eight years old and the dog died of pneumonia, not of a grand mal seizure.

Speaker 2: 6:22

I wrote an article about the dog. I was so impressed with the work that they did with this dog and with the care that they gave the dog. There were very few times when the dog was there overnight, but when the dog was there I could call anytime and you can tell people are really invested in caring for the dog. The dog just had a wonderful spirit. I wrote an article about this, talking about the wonderful work that they had done, and it was printed in Dog World.

Speaker 2: 6:50

My editor at the Sun kept saying we have to put this in the sun, we have to write it for the sun, print it in the sun. I didn't want to do it because I thought I'm going to get all of this mail and all of these calls from people saying how can you lavish all this attention on a dog when people are starving. But he convinced me. We took some of the medical stuff out of it, cut it about in half and ran it as an op-ed piece in the Sunday paper I went into work with some trepidation the next day and I have to tell you I got calls from pharmacists asking what the medication was. I got calls from people who suffered from seizures. I got calls from people saying I just lost a dog. Could we get together sometime and talk? I got calls asking for pictures of the dog. I worked for the Baltimore Sun probably for 20-some years after that and I was still getting comments about that dog.

Speaker 2: 7:43

It was a remarkable experience knowing that dog. Because the FDA is not involved in pet medications, as I'm sure they can do things much sooner, I should say that while that dog, wild Woodrow, was still alive, we rescued a dog off the streets of Baltimore. Baltimore has a mild enough climate that a hearty dog can live on the streets here year round. Sometimes there have been studies done about this at Johns Hopkins University. Sometimes these dogs don't make it to shelters so they form packs.

Speaker 2: 8:19

That was my first rescued dog. She was wonderful, wonderful, I think Woodrow initially thought what is this dog doing in my life? One of the big lessons for me there was that when Woodrow did die which is just a horrible thing, even though he had a pretty good life and a pretty long life for an animal as sick as he was. It was such a help to me to be able to come home and not just see an empty dog bed and empty dog bowls. That really taught me a lesson. I know that a lot of people do believe that if you bring a younger dog in, the dog you have is elderly or ailing, it can be a bomb for the older dog as well. I actually followed that again with my next rescued dog.

Speaker 1: 9:08

I have to say what you just said is so important for a couple reasons. I have to grab a photo of two of my childhood dogs for you. This is the Oldie, the golden retriever, and this is little champ as a puppy. Goldie was our golden retriever. I think I was around six or seven when my dad rescued her from the shelter and someone lost a great dog. She was one or two and she was fully trained. I'd always wanted a puppy. I wanted a cocker spaniel. I loved the lady in the tramp, all those things. When I was sick, when I was in sixth or seventh grade, they agreed to let me get a puppy. I went and picked it out. My sister paid someone $5 for me to adopt champ. At that point Goldie was getting older and maybe not moving as much. Here comes puppy champ. She took him under her wing like she was his mom. They bonded and it kept her active. It really did. I think it was such an incredible bond to see. I think that people think when you have an older dog maybe they're not going to get along with a new dog. That's not always true. Sometimes it actually helps them in a lot of ways.

Speaker 1: 10:17

The other thing you said that I have to say about champ was when he was around one year old he had a grandma seizure. We went through that journey with him. Luckily for us, the regular epilepsy medication worked to manage him. He lived to be about 12 or 13 years old. In the end he died of other issues because of the impact the medication had on some of his organs. He lived a happy, good life even though he would still have a seizure once in a while. It's such a hard thing to go through. Just hearing you tell that story, I immediately thought of champ and how hard it was. When he started having those. We were so worried about him, but in the end he lived this long, happy life with us that I'm so grateful for.

Speaker 2: 11:02

Oh, that's wonderful. He was a champ. Obviously the dog has had a seizure and doesn't know it has had a seizure. It's original personality. If it's a happy, fun dog, it's back immediately. You've got to admire the spirit.

Speaker 1: 11:18

Yeah, it's amazing how fast they bounce back, but it's very dramatic for us to witness, especially when you don't realize at first what's happening. It sounds like you did everything you possibly could for Woodrow to give him the best life possible. I definitely am. The story is you're telling it and I'm like this sounds familiar. I think I've read a similar story. We'll get to that in a minute. You were talking about the rescue dog you had when you still had Woodrow. What was that dog's name?

Speaker 2: 11:50

That dog. There are two names in my novel that are actual names and one of them is the name of that dog, that's Zippy. Oh, and although I must say Zippy was a very sweet mannered little lady, and Zippy in the book has all of the Noddiness of every naughty thing any dog I ever had did. I'm sorry that Zippy is no longer with us and I'm sorry that in death she is doing some slightly bad things without Dematures in the course of the book.

Speaker 1: 12:19

So in the relationship between Woodrow and Zippy, is that of what you discuss in your novel? Please write, or is it just similar, similar, similar, it's similar.

Speaker 2: 12:30

Yes, the dog called Winslow in the book is, is fairly is a healthy dog, fairly similar to Woodrow, but Zippy, poor little Zippy, she didn't. She didn't do even a tenth of the things that that this puppy does in the novel.

Speaker 1: 12:43

She definitely Zippy. In the novel, I would say, is a compilation of all those mischievous dogs you've met, but probably all of them put together.

Speaker 2: 12:50

Yes, that's what I was going for. That's exactly it. I think any dog owner would look at any one of those things and say, yep, seen that before. Yep.

Speaker 1: 13:00

So then you were saying, after Woodrow had passed away, you got another dog, and that was while you still had Zippy.

Speaker 2: 13:07

Yes, this is now towards the end of Zippy's life and and again the sort of the same pattern and it worked out pretty similarly. I have to say that the rescue dogs I have had have been some of the healthiest dogs I've had, and I think this is also often true of mixed breeds. There's probably no inbreeding going on with a mixed breed, so that that in itself can contribute to, I think, a dog's stamina and overall health at times.

Speaker 1: 13:38

Yeah, that's definitely something I've talked with other guests before about. There's this Stereotype that dogs and shelters are bad dogs, when in fact, because most of them are mixed breed and who knows how many mixes, for some of them have ten different breeds they actually oftentimes do live longer, healthier lives because they're not going through those patterns of breeding that people go through when they have a full bred dog, for whatever reason, and because of that I've always heard so many people say oh, my mutt was the best dog I ever had.

Speaker 2: 14:11

Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely, and I'm really one of my goals for this book. I have many things that I hope people will get out of it, but one of the goals is that I really hope that it will lead to more people adopting and rescuing dogs, because they do change your life for the better, and I hope this book gives that message very clearly, because characters in the book go through some really tough stuff and it's a book I wrote really to show how Imagination, love and dogs can help us cope with hardships and loss and grief, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 14:50

I think that's so important. Our pets give us so much to support. Sometimes we don't realize it at the time and we look back and think, wow, I don't think I would have got through that without them. Yes, yeah, absolutely and the big thing I would say to people considering rescue or Adopting is you may not change the whole world by adopting one pet, but you're gonna change the entire world for that one pet and you're gonna get a lot back in return.

Speaker 2: 15:15

You're gonna change your life for the better?

Speaker 1: 15:17

Yes, so your whole life, your whole professional life, I should say. You're a writer and a A critic and a teacher. You've done all these amazing things. What made you decide at this point to write a book about a couple of dogs? I?

Speaker 2: 17:26

should say I'm spent most. I'm a theater critic by profession and I spent 23 years as a theater critic for the Baltimore Sun and then immediately became the theater critic for the NPR affiliate here in Baltimore, and Writing theater reviews has a lot of similarities to just plain reporting. I'm part of the job is reporting. What am I seeing up there on the stage in front of me? What is it like to sit in my theater seat? And after doing that for decades I didn't know if I had any imagination left, if I had any creativity left.

Speaker 2: 17:59

And so I got in touch with a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright I had written a great deal about over the years and really developed a professional relationship with her, and that's Paul of Vogel, who was also a dog lover, by the way. And oh boy, and I should say this, I do deep research and my husband used to say to me you have gone overboard when you not only know the type of pet that your subject has but the name of the pet. So I can tell you, for example, the Wendy Wasserstein had a cat named ginger and Stephen Sondheim had two standard poodles named Wilson and Addison. And no, that doesn't show up in too many of the interviews, although one of my proudest stories was interviewing the dog that played Sandy in a touring company of Annie and there was actually an Understudy dog that they called the underdog. I have a picture of myself with one of those dogs and it's proudly displayed.

Speaker 2: 18:56

But I did have.

Speaker 2: 18:56

I had a story I wanted to tell, I had characters that I wanted to share and I honestly did not know if I could do this.

Speaker 2: 19:04

And and Paul of Vogel, very graciously, at the time she was head of the graduate playwriting program at Brown University and I said to her I don't know if I have any creativity left, but if I do, I think you can find it. And she said come on up. And she invited me to be a visiting student in her graduate program for the next academic year. And, boy, she really did rediscover by creativity. And many years ago she taught a workshop for the media in Washington DC and she invited me to this and she spelled out her philosophy in broad strokes in the morning and at lunchtime she Is signed us to write a short play, one of three types either a play about a dog, a monologue or a play. That was impossible, the stage not being willing to follow directions, I combined and I wrote a dog's inner monologue and she came up to me at the end of the day and said you can do this.

Speaker 2: 20:05

So from the beginning, really, my writing was very involved with dogs and I don't think that I would have come up with quite the same novel structurally if I hadn't been studying with someone who takes so many risks in her own writing and who does what she calls making the familiar strange and the strange familiar. So in my case I have dogs, everyone is familiar with dogs and I have typewriters and most people still remember typewriters. But typewriting dogs is a little more unusual, it's a little stranger, and it went through many drafts afterwards to finally get to the point where it is now as a Completed hardback book and an e-book and an audio book, and it was as I think you know. It was just officially published yesterday actually.

Speaker 1: 20:55

Congratulations, thank you. Thank you. I realized that as I was preparing. I'm like, oh my gosh, it literally just came out. I feel lucky to have had it ahead of time and gotten to read it myself and really enjoyed it. Oh, thank you, I Well. I thought I think it would be great for everyone to get a snippet of the way in which you wrote the book, and so I was thinking it'd be a good time to have you read an excerpt from the beginning of the book, if you'd like to do that.

Speaker 2: 21:20

I would love to do that, and so the book is written entirely in letters. There are three correspondence. Two of them are dogs Winslow, who's a noble, sophisticated, very literate Boston Terrier, and Zippy, who is a puppy. She's a terrier mix, she's a, a ragamuffin rescued off the streets of Baltimore, similar to what we just talked about. And and Winslow and Zippy are corresponding with grandma Vivian, who is an artist recently what an artist in Cleveland. So the entire book is their letters.

Speaker 2: 21:51

There are three secondary characters. The correspondence right about a lot, and they are the dogs owners, pamela and Frank, a couple whose marriage is unraveling, and Pamela's mother, who is facing Increasing health crises. So I should say in the theater in place. It's often a good thing to start on a day when something unusual or different happens, and that's the way this book starts. And the letter I'm going to read is written by Winslow to Grandma Vivian. And you will see, he's a very formal dog, he is a Boston, he wears a tuxedo all the time, he has a large vocabulary and he takes things very seriously. So this is the letter that starts the book, his letter. Dear Grandma Vivian, you know I only write if something is amiss With considerable dismay. I must inform you there is another dog in the house.

Speaker 2: 22:47

Frank brought home a puppy. Why? This is a perfectly contented one dog household. The puppy arrived here dirty and shivering in the small hours. Pamela and I were asleep when Frank came into the bedroom, turned on the light and deposited the muddy pup on the bed. Pamela sat up, none too happy, and told Frank to get the puppy off the bed and out of the bedroom. And what was he doing? Staying out until this hour. And where was he? And we cannot keep that puppy and some other things. I didn't catch because I followed Frank and the puppy out of the room.

Speaker 2: 23:23

Frank gave the pup a bath in the basement wash tub. It wouldn't stop whining and whimpering. At one point it jumped out of the tub and shook dirty bathwater all over me. The indignity Pamela and Frank needed to locate its owners soon. I have enough to deal with trying to keep things on a steady keel around here. We do not need a superfluous auxiliary animal. It's not even a Boston Terrier. Yours wins slow PS. The scruffy stelfish pup has already eaten my dinner, stolen two dog biscuits and decimated my favorite tennis ball.

Speaker 1: 24:00

First of all, that dog's a better writer than I am. So proper and fancy and just the way that you brought through in that letter like the complete, utter disapproval that he had with having some new animal brought into his home. How could that possibly happen? And you just? I just think of so many pets and the way that they would feel like that. What did you just do?

Speaker 2: 24:25

Good, that's what I'm going for. I have to tell you one other thing. I want to tell you a little something about how this book happened to get published and find a publisher, because this also has something to do with rescuing dogs. There are various ways to go about trying to get a book published. You write to agents, you write to publishers. They all ask for different things.

Speaker 2: 24:48

Some of them want five pages, some of them want 50 pages, a few of them want the whole manuscript and this particular publisher requested the whole manuscript and I think I sent it, like on a Thursday, and on Saturday I got an email from him that said I just want to let you know I don't like epistolary novels and I don't think I can suspend my disbelief enough to believe that dogs are writing letters. But he set up a Zoom meeting for Monday and so I thought I know where he stands and he called me Monday and the first thing he said was I have to apologize for my Saturday email. I love this book. So that's how we got from there to a little more than a year later, the book. But in March of last year this past year he sent me an email and the subject line said this is what your damn book made me do. And I opened the email and he had adopted his first ever dog, a rescue dog.

Speaker 2: 25:50

And it has changed his life. And I thought boy, the book has already done something. I really wanted it to do.

Speaker 1: 25:58

That's amazing. The power of storytelling, whether it's podcasting and radio or movies and TV and plays, and now books. That's one of the reasons I'm doing this. I'm telling stories to inspire other people to adopt, to foster, to rescue, and the fact that your book was able to do what you wanted it to do before it was even published is amazing.

Speaker 2: 26:20

It is, I'm very grateful and I have already gotten it. It's shown up. You said you'd read some of the reviews. It is also already seeming to help people dealing particularly with grief and loss, and that means an immense amount to me.

Speaker 1: 26:35

Yeah, that's definitely a theme in the book. There are several different types of loss that you go through, from the loss of a parent to the loss of an unborn child, to the loss of another parent. And the way that you weave the story of the dogs and their involvement and their not just their involvement but their reaction to it, but also their involvement with helping the humans in the book deal with these losses, I think is why it is a powerful story. But it is because it's real life events happening and they're the way that the dogs are a part of it throughout. The story is really powerful.

Speaker 2: 27:10

Thank you, Thank you. Thank you for that. And there is a lot of humor in the book. The publisher thinks it's basically aimed at 16 and up because of some of the serious themes. And there are also recipes in the book. They're greeting cards and there are various things. There's at one point the dogs write a letter to the White House. But the recipes there are half a dozen recipes in the book. They have all been tested. I have tasted every single one and I have walked around with at least one of the types of dog biscuits in my pocket. So when I see my neighbors walking their dogs and the meatloaf recipe in the book has become our favorite family meatloaf recipe.

Speaker 1: 27:51

So I love that.

Speaker 2: 27:53

That's another fun aspect of the book.

Speaker 1: 27:55

Yes, I love how a part of the book so grandma Vivian, who the dogs are writing back and forth with, decides she's going to write a book herself about recipes for dog friendly food, and I think that's something that, in and of itself, you have weaved several different types of books in it, so that's like a bonus for anyone reading the book. Now you can try it out for your own dog.

Speaker 2: 28:17

And, I have to admit, the easiest recipe is probably the frozen yogurt dog treat, and you can certainly make this for yourself. You might want to leave out the milk bone.

Speaker 1: 28:27

Right.

Speaker 2: 28:27

Just in case. Maybe put some extra peanut butter in there or something.

Speaker 1: 28:32

And that's such a popular thing to do for dogs. I live in California. When I get so hot here during the summer, we're always trying to find ways to keep our pets cool, so those types of recipes anything you can make into a popsicle or something frozen are such great ways to help keep your pets cool and give them a little enrichment at the same time. I would say there's probably a lot of your own personal stories weaved into the book, Probably loss. I know the big loss that's going on with grandma Vivian's character in terms of the loss of a spouse and then the other character's loss of a father. So was that something that you wanted to include? Was it difficult for you to weave into the story or did it help you process it by writing it in the book?

Speaker 2: 29:16

Oh, the latter definitely, and I always knew where this book was going. I do have to say I think my husband was the first person to say this to me, but other people have said this too. Please tell me that no dogs die in the book, and so I want to assure everyone listening to this that no, no dogs die in this book, so you don't have to worry about that. The dogs, in a lot of ways, are saviors. They're saviors of the spirit.

Speaker 1: 29:41

Absolutely yes. So many friends I know or have met in the last couple of years, going through all of my animal rescue work with the podcast, is we always say oh, I'll watch any movie unless a dog dies in it, that I'm out, sorry, no, you're safe with, please write. Yes, it definitely deals with grief and loss, but the pets are the stars in terms of being the therapy, being the support and them being the champion throughout the books.

Speaker 2: 30:09

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 30:10

So I know that Winslow the Bosinteria is modeled after your Woodrow. What aspects of him really are parts of what made your actual dog, woodrow, the best dog?

Speaker 2: 30:26

I think the combination of sort of gravitas and playfulness, which these are traits of many Boston Terriers, I think, and Boston Terriers were bred and continue to be bred as companion dogs, as many dogs in the non-sporting group are, unlike dogs in the working group that have to have a job all the time, and I have had one of those. A Boston Terrier really wants to please its people and be with its people and those are definitely traits. I think. Winslow in the book very much is very concerned about the people in his life and what's going on with them and we see that whole human story filtered through dog's eyes and so they don't understand everything, especially Zippy, who has almost no attention span and tends to take everything at face value. So that at one point when Vivian writes that the dog judge would have gotten a kick out of Zippy, zippy gets really upset and says why would the dog judge have kicked Zippy? Zippy didn't do anything wrong.

Speaker 1: 31:28

Yeah, there's so many moments where Zippy, as he's trying to understand and learn, wait, what do you mean by? He's very literal in his interpretation of the letters.

Speaker 2: 31:39

Yes, exactly, exactly. So you have two very diametrically opposed but, I think, very real dog personalities. And it takes Zippy quite a while to learn how to read and write. She learns this from reading the newspapers, particularly the headlines in the papers that are spread on the floor in the kitchen and you know why those are there and initially is copying headlines, but just mastering the keyboard is very difficult. So a lot of this is in the beginning of the book, is practically just gibberish and I had no idea how the actress doing the audio book was going to make these strange combinations of letters and symbols into something audible. But she did an extraordinary job and she has a different voice, very distinct voices for each of these characters, and it was very important for me on the page. It's one of the reasons letters worked well to have different voices for these characters. So hearing those voices come through and be realized by an actress has been part of the fun for me.

Speaker 1: 32:46

Yeah, that must be great because they're all. Obviously all three have very distinct voices in the way they write, in the way they explain, and Zippy obviously has a huge transformation throughout the whole book. So I'm sure it was great for you to just actually hear them come to life for the audio book.

Speaker 2: 33:02

Yes, definitely.

Speaker 1: 33:04

And one of the things you talk about you mentioned a few times in the book is Marilyn SPCA and how the characters in the book take little Zippy there for dog obedience and for training and all these things to try to help this little terrier. That can only seem to do wrong in many ways, and so is Marilyn SPCA. She says she's very enthusiastic. Yes, she does everything not always right, but very enthusiastically. So is Marilyn SPCA, an organization you've actually worked with in any way or had interactions with.

Speaker 2: 33:40

Yes, definitely, definitely. It's a very important and probably the oldest organization of its type in Maryland. I know it's one of the oldest SPCAs in the United States. And in the book Vivian convinces Zippy's owners to take her to Puppy Kindergarten, to obedience training, and Zippy is again overly enthusiastic about this which she gets there, and I hate to give anything away, but she ends up going through Kindergarten twice, at the end of which there is some thought that she may have come out just with a social promotion. I have actually the real Zippy did go through Puppy Kindergarten, and not twice. The real Zippy made it through the first time and actually did quite well.

Speaker 2: 34:27

And that's really just one of the many things that the Marilyn SPCA does. In the beginning of the book it's mentioned that Pamela, as you could tell from that letter, is not real happy about having this puppy, and so one of the things she does is contact the Marilyn SPCA to see if she can find its owners, which I think any responsible person initially does try to find the owners of the pet, and sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. So there's that essential service, and in 1990, you did not have the internet and ways to go online and even write to all your neighbors and say do you know whose dog this is? But the Marilyn SPCA. It does have a very broad history. It started, I think, similarly to a lot of the SPCA's, which were formed to help Baltimore's war courses. So the SPCA agents would go through the streets trying to prevent people from beating their horses or who might have had harnesses on these animals that didn't fit or had them pulling overloaded wagons.

Speaker 2: 35:30

The Marilyn SPCA was started back in 1869. And then, after it continued it's for trying to protect horses, but also about six or eight years later, got very involved in protesting dog fighting and cock fighting. There was engine shooting going on. They occupy a really beautiful estate, a historic estate right here in Baltimore City, right off the major expressway, and they normally bring in 3,000 animals a year. Some of them are owner-surrenders, some of them are strays, Some of them are transports that come from other shelters, including other shelters in Maryland, because at the SPCA there is no time limit for how long they will keep an animal, barring obviously major illness or danger, and the Marilyn SPCA always takes animals back. And though that may seem, how can that possibly happen? But sometimes it's not the right match for you, but it might be absolutely the right match for somebody else, and some other dog that has been sitting there waiting for an owner may find a happy home in your home.

Speaker 1: 36:48

Yeah, I don't think people realize how often, unfortunately, animals, especially dogs, can be returned to a shelter they were adopted from. I saw that a lot, even in my own local county shelter. It still happens that shelter that I volunteer with they actually have a 30-day policy that if for any reason it doesn't work out, whatever it may be, they'd rather the dog come back to them who already knows them and can't find a better fit. And yes, that's so important for shelters to offer that so that the animal can come back to them and they can find the right, exact right home for them.

Speaker 2: 37:22

And the animal is then not being displaced too many times. I have to say I really admired the podcast you did about the international SPCA. I think sometimes people don't realize how broad-based these organizations, particularly the SPCA, is and the type of important work that it can do in our war-torn world now. And look at how many animals were adopted during COVID, which was just a wonderful thing, but now I'm distressed by the number of animals that are being returned, and that again is where I hope my book might be some help.

Speaker 1: 37:58

No, I think it's so important, especially the story of Zippie being found on the street and the owners trying to to strip the SPCA? Yes, and unfortunately that happens because people dump animals near shelters, thinking oh, it's okay, they'll find them. That's not always the case. Don't ever do that, please, because that is dangerous, exactly.

Speaker 1: 38:20

But Zippie was found by his soon-to-be-new owners and they did everything they can. Anytime anyone finds a stray, take them to a shelter. They will scan them to see if they have a chip. They'll look them up in their system all of those things and that's all important Because we want to return animals that are lost. I know when I was growing up our golden retriever got out once while we were on vacation and we were distraught and luckily we were able to find her a few days later at one of the local shelters and we got her back. That doesn't always happen and unfortunately not all stray dogs are. Their owners are looking for them, but that is. That's such an important role that the shelters play in reuniting animals with their families.

Speaker 2: 39:01

And there are so many more tools today. There are so many more people out there willing to help.

Speaker 1: 39:08

Absolutely. I think about it being so involved now and being able to just easily comment and share and push out information for dogs who are looking for homes, and I think, gosh, how did they do it? Even five years ago, let alone 10 or 20 years ago Now, I know there weren't the volume, maybe, of dogs we have now, but still, technology does help in a lot of ways, and we talked about technology when you and I first spoke earlier, before we started recording, and you said you were purposeful in the time period that you set your bucket, and so can you talk a little bit about that?

Speaker 2: 39:41

Yes, it's set between 1990 and 1993. And I did that deliberately because I wanted to not be in the era of emails and text messages. Besides being a lover of dogs, I'm also a lover of letters, and so much of what we know historically about people from everyday citizens to important historic figures if you look at most biographies so much of that comes from, and letters do capture a writer's personality in the way that certainly a text message never can. I don't know what historians are going to do in the future, but I wanted to celebrate letter writing. I wanted to celebrate dogs, so, of course, dogs writing letters.

Speaker 1: 40:24

No, I think that's so true. I come up from a family my grandfather was a postman. My grandmother took over his rural route when he was in World War II. I come from a family that loves cards and letters and sending things in the mail and I remember in my childhood being away at camp and getting letters from my family and sending them and oh, I used to love postcards. You can hard to find them now. I think that is such an important piece to the book. But also, like you said, it's a part of history and how we can look back on our history in a way that we're losing in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2: 40:59

Exactly, exactly. I was going through a box that I found of my mother's that was all material relating to my father's dog judging career and I actually found one of the dog shows he judged the Morrison Essex show in New Jersey, which was then the biggest single day dog show in the country, on the estate of Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge. And they asked their judges to say, to answer the question you asked me, how did you first get into dogs? And I never knew that from my father and I found that out and if that letter hadn't been there I would have gone through life without knowing that.

Speaker 1: 41:32

That's so great. I lost my father five years ago and we are very lucky that he spent time in his later years writing down stories of his life. He was a World War II veteran himself and he lived a long, interesting life, and not having him here now to ask certain question of when we talk about him, it's so great that we have some of it and we have some letters that he wrote about us and our family and we were able to even read some of them at his funeral. And so all of those pieces, like you're saying, with your own father and his experience as a dog judge and having those pieces of his history, are so important, and I loved how you weaved in his experience into the book as well how grandma Vivian would teach the other dogs about who he was and what he did and how important that was in that family's life.

Speaker 2: 42:26

Yes, exactly, and my father's actual oldest brother wrote one of the first books about Boston Terriers back in 1926. Oh, wow, yeah. Boston Terriers and dogs in general are deep in my genetic code.

Speaker 1: 42:42

Yeah, and I have to say I definitely had a face for the Boston Terriers in the book because I grew up with a very close friend who lived three houses down for me and they had a Boston Terrier named Marty and he was a little character and always with them, went on road trips with them, like you said was had to be involved with everything going on with the family. So I loved reading it because I had this imagination and my champ was a Terrier mix, so zippy. I was like, oh yeah, I remember those things. So it was definitely brought dogs of my own past to life for me and I really enjoyed that and I think anyone reading it will find dogs from their lives seen in the words that you've written in these letters. Oh good, I hope so.

Speaker 1: 43:25

Judy, I want to thank you so much for being here. I apologize for the technical issues at the beginning of our podcast recording. Gotta be true and say it's not all as easy as it looks, but I really appreciate you being here and talking about your love of dogs, your life full of dogs and how that all led you to write this book. Please write. It was really an enjoyable thing for me to read and I'm actually going to be passing it on to my mom now. I've read it and made some notes. My mom is a huge book lover and reader and I told her once I recorded with you I was going to pass it on to her to get to her and enjoy the story as well. So I really do appreciate your time and being here and sharing all of this with us.

Speaker 2: 44:07

And I appreciate your having me on the podcast.

Speaker 1: 44:10

Thank you so much and everyone, please go out and get your copy of Please Write and Novel in Letters. It'll be a great thing to purchase for your friends and family for Christmas as well, and so I hope everyone will do that after listening to this podcast. Thank you all for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed meeting Judy and hearing her story and all about how she has become an author with her new book Please Write, talking about dogs and their important connection to us and how they really are just a part of our everyday lives and how they just are our support, our precious sidekicks. I really hope you enjoyed hearing her story and if you're interested in learning more about her, all of her links are in the show notes, as well as a link to purchase her new book, please Write.

Speaker 1: 45:05

I've read it and it's really enjoyable. I have family who've read it and really enjoyed it as well. It's a great thing to share with others and even purchase as a gift this holiday season for your fellow animal lovers and friends and family. So thank you again for being here as always. Please share this episode with your friends and family and, if you haven't done so already, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this episode and follow the podcast on Instagram at the story of my pet podcast. Until next time, my friends and fellow animal lovers, much love to you and your pets.