Petfinder Blog

Greg Kincaid is the author of A Dog Named Christmas. His next book, the prequel Christmas with Tucker, is now available at Amazon.com, BN.com, Borders.com, and all major retailers. You can also read Greg's previous blog posts for Petfinder and visit him at www.facebook.com/ authorgregkincaid.

Over the last two weeks, Greg shared Christmas with Tucker's prologue and chapter 2, in which we meet a tethered dog and the family who takes him in when his neglectful owner is arrested. This week, their story continues. Enter here for a chance to win a signed copy of Christmas with Tucker. (Official Rules)

From Christmas with Tucker: Ch. 3
As I let the kitchen door slam behind me, it occurred to me that, like an elephant or a giraffe, a dog was foreign to the McCray farm. The adult words, spoken frequently by my father and by my grandfather, too, came rushing back to me. "Dairy cattle and dogs don't mix, George. Quit asking for a puppy."

For years I grumbled about it, as any kid would, but like hot days in February, I accepted that dogs were not part of the McCray landscape.

Now this no-name dog was sitting in the truck and I didn't know what to make of it. Part of me was excited, but there were other, unsettling feelings, too. At that point in my life, I needed the world to be arranged according to rules that I could count on, even when those rules were unpopular.

In my life, the one rule that children counted on most had been broken: Parents don't leave their children. That rule I considered inviolate. For me, there was an obvious corollary, too: A boy doesn't lose his dad in a tractor accident on a hot summer afternoon. My father, John Mangum McCray, was here one morning as he had always been, ate breakfast, went outside to work, and by that afternoon, was gone forever.

Now this dairy cattle and dogs don't mix rule was being broken, too. Deep down, I was sure that I would never be allowed to have a dog, and though I resented it, it was still one of the rules that I counted on to keep my crumbling universe in order. It was somehow frightening to see this rule broken. Which rule was going to be broken next? What had I done wrong to be the only kid in my school who had lost a parent? I felt as if I were being punished, but I didn't understand why. Somehow, my father's death spoke some dark truth about me. Surely, good kids didn't lose their dads -- only the unworthy and the undeserving are so fated. What had I done?

There was more swirling around in my mind, too. I put my hand on the stock gate release and hesitated before pulling the latch. Surprises had lost their appeal. I just didn't know what to do or how to feel about this most recent unplanned event. The latch release needed oil and it creaked as I opened the rear stock gate. I made a note to myself to squirt some oil on the hinge. Standing in the truck bed, hesitant but with his tail wagging, was a beauty of a dog. I had never seen Thorne's dog up close. Though he seemed thin and needed cleaning up, he had long red hair and looked to be an Irish setter. I opened the door fully and reassured him. "It's okay, boy. I won't hurt you. Come on, jump on down."

Greg Kincaid is the author of A Dog Named Christmas. His next book, the prequel Christmas with Tucker, is now available at Amazon.com, BN.com, Borders.com, and all major retailers. You can also read Greg's previous blog posts for Petfinder and visit him at www.facebook.com/authorgregkincaid.

Last week Greg shared the prologue of Christmas with Tucker, in which he explores the life of a tethered dog. This week, the dog's story continues. Enter here for a chance to win a signed copy of Christmas with Tucker. (Official Rules)

From Christmas with Tucker: Ch. 2
The truck door creaked open and then slammed shut. The old man walked through the back kitchen door and took off his hat, exposing gray hair cut short. He had high, flat cheeks that were tanned in the summer from hours spent working outside, a Roman nose slightly large but proud, and a complexion that was surprisingly immune from wrinkles for his seventy-two years.

He was an inattentive shaver who apparently believed that using a razor on alternate days was good enough. His eyes were as blue as the Kansas sky and as sharp as a red-tailed hawk.

Greg Kincaid is the author of A Dog Named Christmas. His next book, the prequel Christmas with Tucker, comes out in November and is now available for preorder at Amazon.com, BN.com, Borders.com, and all major retailers. You can also read Greg's previous blog posts for Petfinder and visit him at www.facebook.com/authorgregkincaid.

This week Greg shares the prologue of Christmas with Tucker. In it, he explores the life of a tethered dog. Enter here for a chance to win a signed copy of Christmas with Tucker. (Official Rules)

From Christmas with Tucker: Prologue
With one paw in the wild and another scratching at the door of humanity, dogs are caught in an awkward spot. It misses the mark to describe a dog as just an animal. We recognize that our pets can be both beasts and evolved life-forms keenly attuned to human needs. Country dogs may be more appreciated for their animal nature -- hunting, herding, and guarding -- while city dogs are cherished for their humanlike ability to expertly deliver companionship and unbridled affection.

From time to time, for a lucky few of us, we come across a dog that seems to move naturally back and forth from one world to the other. Such a dog can howl at the distant coyote, hunt for his own food, refuse to back down from a charging adversary, and run for hours on end with equal glee under snow or sun. In an animal like this, we respect the sheer aliveness that radiates from his eyes. And, when the day's work is done, he'll lie down by our feet, content. For this dog, you know that there is nowhere he would rather be than with you. This dog is complete in both worlds. He models for us how to simultaneously be good and alive -- animal and angel.

Frank Thorne owned this kind of dog. He received the 4-year-old Irish setter in exchange for repairs he made to an old tractor. The owner of the broken-down machine had inherited the tractor and the dog from his grandfather. He kept a picture in his wallet of the old man standing beside that proud setter, taken after one of their weekend hunting trips. The snapshot was good enough -- he had no room for a dog.

Greg Kincaid is the author of A Dog Named Christmas. His next book, the prequel Christmas with Tucker, comes out in November and is now available for preorder at Amazon.com, BN.com, Borders.com, and all major retailers. You can also read Greg's previous blog posts for Petfinder and visit him at www.facebook.com/authorgregkincaid.

I grew up in rural Kansas with three rules. The first two were easy: Be truthful. Respect others. The third one was harder to figure: Humans on the inside and animals on the outside. Each species had its own unique place. Cows were in the pasture, horses in the paddock and dogs on the back porch or in their doghouse.

My grandfather, a dog lover to the core, would have thought it cruel to keep a dog locked up inside a house, constrained from his dog responsibilities: chasing rabbits, swimming in the pond, howling with the local coyotes, napping under a shade tree, or just waiting for my grandfather to come in from a hard day's toil in the fields. In his eyes, a dog was innately happier when residing in the wild kingdom.

Greg Kincaid is the author of A Dog Named Christmas. His next book, the prequel Christmas with Tucker, comes out in November, and is now available for preorder at all major retailers. You can also read his previous blog posts for Petfinder and visit Greg at www.facebook.com/authorgregkincaid.

One of my life's greatest joys is walking or jogging with my dog. If there is anyone who gets more out of it than me, it's Rudy. We need the exercise and doing something together is rewarding for both of us.

I assumed I had a pretty good handle on some common-sense guidelines for making sure it was not too hot for Rudy when we walked or jogged. Recently, I decided to talk with one of our vets, Dr. Cindy Risen in Fairway, KS, to compare my own observations with someone who actually knew something!

I wasn't too far off, but still Dr. Risen had some interesting information to share.

The Humane Society of the United States' annual Genesis Awards honor entertainment and media that spotlight animal issues - and this year, a project close to Petfinder's heart was a winner.

Hallmark Hall of Fame's adaptation of the novel A Dog Named Christmas earned a Genesis award in the TV Film category. The book and movie have a strong pet-adoption message, and we've been involved from the start.

When the book was first published in 2008, author Greg Kincaid wrote a Petfinder blog and publisher Doubleday donated 200 copies to Petfinder's shelter members. Greg also invited Petfinder shelters to bring adoptable dogs to his book signings.

When we last heard from Greg Kincaid, author of the novel A Dog Named Christmas, he and his wife Michale Ann had just adopted a scruffy terrier named Chance after a long search for the perfect dog. Read all of Greg's posts here.

Chance was a good name, but we wanted to try on a few of our own. We settled on Hank, the name of a favorite character in my book, A Dog Named Christmas, for about an hour, and then shifted sequentially to Denny (from my favorite TV show, Boston Legal), Joey (from my favorite musical, Pal Joey), Lewis (my favorite comedian is Lewis Black), Jerry (my second favorite comedian is Jerry Seinfeld) and then, out of exhaustion and fear of bodily injury from our vet's tech if we called one more time to tell them we'd changed the name, we finally settled on Rudy (like the famous third-string Notre Dame football player).

Unfortunately, Rudy soon earned some additional nicknames.

When we brought him home, we were expecting the five-month-old pup to be a little rambunctious and in need of at least some training. But Rudy seemed surprisingly quiet and extraordinarily well-behaved. He was so smart that we only had to tell him things once and he seemed to "get it." He was naturally house trained and got along great with the cats and our other dog. We seemed to have hit the canine jackpot. At that point, being the proud adoptive parent, I gave him the name MIT (like the prestigious college).

But Rudy had been taking allergy pills for a rash, and once the allergy cleared up and Rudy came off the Benadryl, another dog took his place:  A genuine full-fledged puppy we named Nubs -- like horns we could practically see emerging on his devilish furry head.
 

Greg Kincaid is the author of A Dog Named Christmas, a novel about the power of pet adoption. He has been blogging for Petfinder about his and his wife Michale Ann's quest to adopt the perfect dog. Read all his posts here.

We had agreed that after our confusing visit to Wayside Waifs the night before that we would have to think a while longer before continuing on our journey to find me the perfect man-dog.

It started to occur to me that our analysis for picking a dog was missing a layer. We had thought about size, age, breed, coat qualities, color and general personality traits, but when we looked at dogs that had those valued qualities, I just didn't flip.

Why was it that after thinking about all the things that seemed to matter most, the one dog that met none of our requirements seemed the most attractive? How fitting that his name was Chance. He was four months old, a puppy. We wanted an older dog. He sure looked like a terrier and I wanted a hound.

When we took Chance into the holding area to look him over, he saw a garden hose hanging on the wall and he didn't like it. The fur on his back went up and he gave the hose a good barking. The hose didn't back down, so he gave up and ran over and leaped straight onto my lap like we had known each other for years and not 25 seconds. I wasn't sure if he was retreating from the vicious hanging wall serpent or just wanted my company. It didn't matter. He was telling me that this was where he wanted to be, a message the more perfect dogs never delivered.

Greg Kincaid is the author of A Dog Named Christmas, a novel about the power of pet adoption. He has been blogging for Petfinder about his and his wife's quest to adopt the perfect dog. Read all his posts here.

Lab mix Seal Boy is adoptable at T.A.R.A. in Kansas City, MO

My calm indifference caused the battle lines in the Dog Wars to tilt in my favor. "I guess we can't agree, so we'll just pass on a dog for now" brought my wife Michale Ann straight to the bargaining table. We framed a four-part truce. Its terms:

A) We would get a dog that was big enough to navigate a hay field without a periscope.
B) A scruffy, cute face would not be the single deciding factor in choosing a dog.
C) We would take our time, look at lots of dogs, and make a careful decision.
D) We'd spent the last 25 years raising kids, so we would stay away from puppies, opting instead for a wise and mature personality.

As per the terms of the truce, we both combed Petfinder for the next few days and tried to get a feel for the look and size of the dog we might be able to agree upon. I had a hound-looking dog in mind, but Michale Ann seemed pulled in another direction -- really, just about any other direction. I stuck to my guns for a few more days and finally she made a sneak attack to nudge me off my hound fixation.

"What about Seal Boy?"

Last week, I had to interrupt the "Dog Wars" to jump up and down like I just sacked Peyton Manning on a fourth-down game clincher. One very special dog was adopted at a book signing and I was pumped! Not being in the dog-adoption business, it was exciting for me -- though I am sure commonplace for others.

If I was giddy about finding a home for one dog, you can only imagine the gymnastics that resulted from this letter from Pam at Florida's Pine Forest Animal Clinic.

Dear Greg,

I am a veterinary technician in a busy animal hospital in Pensacola, FL. I picked up your book and loved the story. At the hospital where I work, we had 37 abandoned, unwanted and repaired pets looking for homes. That is, until I took your idea from the book and created "Foster a Lonely Pet for the Holidays."

The local news did a several-day piece on the nightly program [here's one clip]. It was amazing!! All of the animals were sent to homes for Thanksgiving and only three cats returned today; the other 34 were adopted.

I thank you for a great story and idea! We plan to do it again in a few weeks for Christmas.

Pam

In my book, A Dog Named Christmas, Todd McCray hears about a holiday fostering program called "Adopt a Dog for Christmas" and pleads with his dad to participate. Todd's father has some reservations about the concept and calls the shelter for details. He soon sets his concerns aside: "Ultimately, it was one of those times in my life when I took a deep breath and trusted that it would work."

Thanks to Pam for taking a deep breath and trusting that what worked in this story would work in the real world too.

Pam received "several hundred" calls and assures me that she put the whole program together in 10 days and with very little time or effort! There were not nearly enough dogs to go around. She said she had never seen such an enthusiastic response.

Greg Kincaid is the author of A Dog Named Christmas, a novel about the power of pet adoption. He has been blogging for Petfinder about his and his wife's quest to adopt the perfect dog. Read all his posts here.

I know I'm supposed to be writing about the Dog Wars, but I have to take a mid-week hiatus while the combatants reload.

It's very exciting to see A Dog Named Christmas listed this week as the "On the Rise" selection by the American Book Seller's Association for hardcover fiction. But something else happened recently that reminded me that the real power of the book lurks behind those numbers.

I was at a book signing at Watermark Books in Wichita. The signing started at 7:00 p.m., and around 6:30, Barbara and Jack from Lifeline Animal Placement and Protection, Inc., showed up with three dogs in need of homes. We had decided that, because of the strong rescue theme in the book, public events would be a great opportunity to also plug Petfinder and animal rescue. And what better way to promote adoption than with adoptable dogs?

Jack and Barbara had three dogs with them. One was a small terrier-spaniel mix. The second was a miniature-poodle mix, and the third dog was very large standard poodle named Rogan. Rogan was beautiful and clearly had more charisma than any man or beast could demand. His picture really does not begin to capture his rather regal bearing.

When we last heard from A Dog Named Christmas author Greg Kincaid, he and his wife Michale Ann had decided to adopt a shelter dog -- then realized they had very different ideas about what makes the ideal dog. Read all of Greg's posts here.

I tried to explain the concept of the dog I wanted in perfectly simple terms. "I want a dog that looks like he can discuss the finer aspects of elk hunting and is potty trained for a bass boat."

My wife looked at me strangely and said, "But you don't hunt and don't own a bass boat."

"Exactly."

Her head cocked to one side. "Yes?"

"This dog has to say MAN all over it. This has to be a dog that can carry my fishing pole ..."

"Even though you don't fish?"

"Precisely. This dog should jump excitedly within 100 yards of a shotgun hanging in the back of pick-up truck."

"That you don't own?"

"Right. Do you understand now?"

"Not really."

Over the next few days, I sent Michale Ann a flurry of e-mails suggesting dogs posted on Petfinder who looked well-suited for me, including Izzy, a 2-year-old basset hound/lab mix waiting for a home at Heart of America Humane Society in Kansas City, KS.

Greg Kincaid wrote about shelter dogs in his novel A Dog Named Christmas, and after researching the book, was inspired to adopt one himself. He's chronicling his adoption journey each week on the Petfinder blog. Read all his posts here.

Most of our pets wandered onto our farm looking for dinner and then hung around for the next 80 dog years.

They picked us, and we cared for them because they needed a home. A few showed up attached to my wife, Michale Ann, or one of our kids, who was pleading, "Please ... please ... please, can I keep him?"

I'm not good at "no," so for long periods
we've had bumper crops of pets. Until I
found Petfinder, I had never had the opportunity to engage in a well thought-out selection process.

Michale Ann and I haven't had a "walk-on" for quite a few years now and we were down to only one dog, a little dachshund named Ruthie who seems surgically attached to my wife's hip. With the exodus of our now-grown children, the house has grown still, particularly in the evening hours and on weekends.

The idea that maybe I should carefully choose just the right dog for me was a concept that made its way from my subconscious and into A Dog Named Christmas. Todd, the main character, spends hours at his local animal shelter, picking just the right dog for him.

My wife said that this was a clear manifestation of my latent desire to adopt a dog. Translation: She wanted another dog.

Editor's note: Greg Kincaid's first novel, A Dog Named Christmas, hit shelves on Tuesday. The book tells the story of a special young man who inspires his entire town to take in dogs from the local shelter.

Greg lives on a farm in East Kansas with his wife, Michale Ann. He and his family had always taken in stray dogs who "found them," but after writing the book, Greg was inspired to adopt from a shelter. He will be blogging here each week about his search (on Petfinder, of course!) for the perfect dog.

This fall, Christmas came early. On my wish list was launching my new book, A Dog Named Christmas, finding a good truck and, finally, settling on the perfect dog to go into it.  

In October, I finally found the right truck. It's a real  beauty -- a 1982 Ford  F-250 with only 80,000 miles. The search took me several months, but the book was worse: That was about nine years from start to finish. The effort that went into the truck and book were significant, but picking the right dog ... I had no idea! It was quite a journey, but I can't remember when I've had more fun.

To research A Dog Named Christmas, I had the privilege of visiting shelters and meeting some of the most amazing people -- many of whom have made it their life's task to care for creatures who want nothing more than a home, a place where they belong. Before I wrote this book, I had never been inside a shelter. In my mind, it would have been too painful. Like most of us, it was easier to pretend that the problem didn't exist and, even if it did, it wasn't really my problem. Frankly, like some of the characters in my book, I was carrying around a flawed perspective.

I learned something important in my visits.