When Dogs Fetch Trouble Instead of Triumph by Susan McCormick

LUCY BURDETTE: Today we are delighted to welcome Susan McCormick back to the blog--this time with a topic close to many of our hearts--dogs in books and life!

SUSAN MCCORMICK: I would like to say that dog character Boris the Newfoundland puppy made a  spectacular save in the newest book in my Fog Ladies cozy murder mystery series. Dogs of many breeds are known for their amazing rescue abilities. Certainly the giant dogs, Newfoundlands, St. Bernards, and Mastiffs, with their tremendous courage, strength, and innate skill, are among these heroes. Think Newfoundland Seaman of Lewis and Clark fame, or St. Bernard Barry in the Swiss Alps, or the entire fleet of Newfoundlands assisting the Coast Guard in Northern Italy. My personal giant dog loves—Kitty, Mandy, Earl, Edward, and Albert—were certainly heroic in their loyalty, love, and slobber, and I miss them all greatly. 

In my own life, through my ten-year-old eyes, I witnessed this unwavering protective nature when my baby brother crawled toward the top of our treacherous basement stairs. One of the four of us older kids had dangerously left the door open. Our St. Bernard, Mandy, dashed over and grabbed him by the scruff of the back of his neck, otherwise known as his shirt collar, and pulled him safely away. 

My Newfoundland, Albert, wasn’t much for the water and might not rise to the occasion if called on. The one and only time he entered a lake, with the lure of an entire Pacific Northwest salmon, he gracefully breaststroked to shore and never waded in above his ankles again. Instinct can only go so far.

Albert aside, I set out to find ordinary heroes among the gentle giant set, and because of these breeds’ inherent bravery, immense size, powerful builds, and fearless determination, I expected to find examples of rescue after rescue. This is what I discovered:

190-pound English Mastiff Floyd, pooped out after an exhausting two-mile trek in Utah, lounged peacefully on a gurney hefted by human rescuers who carried the big boy back down the trail.

150-pound Mastiff Mason tumbled down a riverbank in Texas and was hoisted on a stretcher to safety by the fire department.

Missing 165-pound elderly Newfoundland Smitty Bear was found trapped by logs down a steep ravine in his own backyard and was saved by firefighters with a chainsaw and a rescue basket.

120-pound St Bernard Daisy developed leg pain and plopped at the top of a mountain in England, and eight volunteer rescuers carried her down.

My own 180-pound English Mastiff Earl, tied to an enormous compost bin during a friend’s outdoor barbecue, got spooked and raced across the yard, compost bin flying behind like a kite, only to charge off a ledge and land six feet below, buried in decaying organic matter. My husband rescued him, pushing his huge backside up over the edge. Earl was terrified of trash day ever since, with all those lurking compost bins ready to attack him.



Dogs have helped humans for centuries, tirelessly digging out avalanche victims, dragging drowning swimmers to shore, unearthing victims under rubble. So these canine creatures deserve every rescue we can offer.

As for Boris in The Fog Ladies: Date with Death, at the crucial moment when he was needed, called on to spring into action and corner the killer, on the verge of becoming a legendary hero himself, what does he do? He demurs. He diverts toward the cheese platter on the coffee table instead. The rescue is left to the Fog Ladies themselves.

Do you know a dog who has rescued, or who has needed rescuing? 

Short Synopsis of The Fog Ladies: Date with Death, Book 4 in The San Francisco Cozy Murder Mystery series

The Fog Ladies are at it again, spunky senior sleuths and an overstressed young medical resident solving murders from their elegant apartment building in San Francisco. They join a senior dating group, and romantic intrigue soon turns to murder. Graham Parselle, lady killer extraordinaire, plunges off a cliff on a Senior Singles outing. Did one of his dates pitch him over? Or is Olivia Honeycut’s new beau to blame?

Bio

Susan McCormick is an award-winning writer and doctor who lives in Seattle. She graduated from Smith College and George Washington University School of Medicine, with additional medical training in Washington, DC and San Francisco, where she lived in an elegant apartment building much like the one in the Fog Ladies books. Susan served as a doctor in the US Army for nine years before moving to the Pacific Northwest and civilian practice. In addition to the Fog Ladies series, she also wrote Granny Can’t Remember Me, a lighthearted picture book about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and The Antidote, a middle grade to adult medical fantasy. She is married with two boys. Though dogless now, Susan loves giant dogs, the bigger and slobberier the better. Visit her at https://susanmccormickbooks.com/

Buy the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Bookshop. 

You can follow Susan on Instagram and Facebook.

Dogs are AMAZING: a guest post by Susan McCormick

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Those of you who loved Susan McCormick's last appearance here at JRW will be delighted to know she's back today, with pics of Albert the Newfoundland, some delightful dog facts, and most importantly, the third in her cozy FOG LADIES mysteries. The new book, THE FOG LADIES: IN THE SOUP, tosses the old dears right into it:

 "There was a man in the soup." When the Fog Ladies volunteer at a San Francisco soup kitchen, these spunky elderly friends plus one overworked young doctor-in-training envision washing and chopping and serving. Not murder. Now the soup kitchen is doomed, and the mysteries have just begun. Was the death rooted in a long-ago grudge? Can they save the soup kitchen? Will they find the killer? Could the Fog Ladies, too, end up "in the soup"?

 How can you not love that description? But you'll have to click on of our links to find learn about THE FOG LADIES: IN THE SOUP, because Susan is here to give us what we really want - a chance to win a copy AND talk about dogs!

 

A dog plays a huge role in my new cozy murder mystery, The Fog Ladies: In the Soup, so I am dedicating this guest blog post to dogs. The book also features a cat who spends his time lying in the sun and giving Frances Noonan suspicious looks, so I will not say much more about him. But the dog… Book 1 featured a high-strung Bichon Frise who yapped through the book and ended up saving the day. Book 3 has Boris, a small fluffy black thing, who has digestive issues and a hero’s heart. 

I am a dog person through and through, having loved Earl, an English mastiff, and Edward and Albert, two Newfoundlands. Dogs are amazing. Here are some fun facts.

 

People have 9000 taste buds. Dogs have 1700. This could be why they are satisfied with eating kibble.

 

A dog’s sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times better than ours. Trained dogs in Seattle can smell orca scat in the vast waters of the Puget Sound. Alexandra Horowitz, a dog researcher at Barnard, says people might detect a teaspoon of sugar in our cup of coffee, but a dog can detect a teaspoon of sugar in two Olympic-sized swimming pools. This allows them to detect changes in our hormones to know when we are happy or sad and to detect changes in our body’s chemistry in the form of volatile organic compounds to warn us about low blood sugar or lung cancer or bladder cancer.

 

As far as sight, People have more color detecting cells (cones), but a dog has more light sensitive cells (rods) and a larger pupil to let in more light, so dogs see much better in the dark than people. Rods also detect motion, so dogs see tiny movements better.

 

In addition, like many animals, dogs have a layer of tissue behind the retina called the tapetum lucidum that reflects light back through the retina like a mirror, doubling the chances of the light hitting the eye’s photoreceptors. This is why a dog’s eyes glow in the dark.

 

Dogs’ guts seem indestructible, until they get a blockage. See my guest blog post last year about “Things MyDog Has Eaten” and all the replies to see just how indestructible.

A dog’s sense of touch is about the same as ours. So keep giving those chest thumps, those ear scritches, those tummy rubs. A dog lives for this.

 

 

 

Dogs have innate abilities, skills they were born with and can’t undo. Root out rats. Herd sheep and children. Chase birds. Retrieve balls, sticks, the occasional picnic basket. 

My dogs, Newfoundlands, are ideally suited for water rescue: they are waterproof, have webbed toes and swim a beautiful breaststroke, have large lungs to aid swimming, and have excess fur on their neck for the drowning victim to grab.

 

 

Dogs are amazing. The Fog Ladies, and Boris the hero-dog, think so, too.

What’s the most amazing thing your dog has done?

 

Susan McCormick is a writer and doctor who lives in Seattle. She graduated from Smith College and George Washington University School of Medicine, with additional medical training in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Susan served as a doctor in the U.S. Army for nine years before moving to the Pacific Northwest. In addition to the Fog Ladies series, she also wrote Granny Can’t Remember Me, a lighthearted picture book about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. She lives in Seattle with her husband, two sons, and, until recently, her giant Newfoundland dog, Albert. You can find her on Instagram (with yes, more Albert pics) follow her on Twitter at @smccormickbooks and friend her on Facebook.

Things My Dog has Eaten: A Guest Post by Susan McCormick

Julia Spencer-Fleming: Some of you - some of you - may have spotted Susan McCormick's funny essay about her iron-stomached Newfy back in early October, which is when the second book in her San Francisco Cozy Murder Mystery series came out. Unfortunately, most of us couldn't get a good look at The Fog Ladies: Family Matters, because our blogging software decided to go bonkers, deleting all photos and scrambling Susan's writing. 

Fortunately, she agreed to come back and share a glimpse of life with Albert the Newfoundland. But this time is even better, because the first in her series, The Fog Ladies, is on sale for only $0.99! Grab it quick before the pre-holiday sale ends, and then hurry back here, because one lucky commentor is going to win a copy of The Fog Ladies: Family Matters. Be sure to check out the end of the post for details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Newfoundland dog is a joy in oh, so many ways. Newfoundlands are calm, patient, and phlegmatic. A Newf will happily sit around all day doing nothing, which is perfect for COVID quarantines. These dogs are gigantic, and you don’t need to lean down to pet them. You will never trip over them, and their bark is a deep, dignified woof and not a tiny, high-pitched yip. They are also slobbery and furry, and any hope of a clean house is abandoned when you bring home a Newfoundland. 

 

One thing you may not know, however, and was likely a characteristic of our specific Newfoundland rather than all Newfoundlands, is the number and variety of household objects chewed up and eaten.

 

All puppies go through a chewing phase, and we were not fazed by this. However, Albert the Newfoundland never grew out of chewing, and through all of his years chewed everything in sight, attached or unattached to something or someone. We witnessed the gobbling of some of these belongings, and some we discovered in Albert’s poo. Luckily, a Newfoundland has an enormous esophagus and intestinal tract, and Albert never had a blockage, which was sometimes a worry, seeing the size of the swallowed item.

 

Here is just a partial list:

  -        Any paper product, including piano and guitar sheet music, homework, files tucked away in a briefcase brought home from work, mail, toilet paper, paperback books

  -        Legos, any and all small plastic toys, bouncy balls, stuffies

  -        Pinecones

  -        The carpet on the stairs

  -        The stairs

-        Socks (on or off our feet)

-        An entire loaf of pumpkin bread

-        A ten pound bag of flour and a five pound bag of oat bran when he accidentally locked himself in the pantry

-        An ink cartridge

 

 

-        A Yankee’s baseball carried home by our sons from a trip to NYC (did you know baseballs were made of cork?)

-        Two pizzas at the doggy beauty parlor (he slipped the leash, climbed the stairs into the break room and devoured their lunch off the table)

-        One pound of lard

-        Nonslip bathmat from inside the bathtub

-        

     My elderly mother’s red cashmere sweater and only pair of shoes that fit (luckily, my mother had Alzheimer’s and couldn’t remember he’d eaten her favorite shoes and only knew that she loved Albert)

-        75 pieces from a Mastermind game

-        Strainer full of pasta

-        Costco-sized bag of fancy chocolate Easter eggs covered in colorful pastel tinfoil (we sweated this one because chocolate is deadly for dogs, but he is huge so the lethal dose is huge, and he must have swallowed them whole because the eggs came out the other end undigested and still covered in their foil)

-        A fully decorated gingerbread house

-        Baby Jesus from the nativity set 

 

 

 

 

 

COVID was good for Albert. He was approaching nine years old, very old for a Newfoundland, and he was sick. In his last months he had his entire family around him every single day, sheer bliss for a dog.

 

Many dogs inhabit the elegant apartment building in my cozy murder mystery series, The Fog Ladies, and Albert was my muse when writing. In Book One, a tiny dog saves the day. Albert could not believe a tiny, yippy dog got this role. In Book Two, there are a few lines about a Newfoundland. Albert was pleased. But in Book Three, expected out in fall 2021, a Newfoundland is front and center.

How has your dog fared during COVID? And what is the strangest thing your dog has eaten?

 

Susan McCormick is a writer and doctor who lives in Seattle. She graduated from Smith College and George Washington University School of Medicine, with additional medical training in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Susan served as a doctor in the U.S. Army for nine years before moving to the Pacific Northwest. In addition to the Fog Ladies series, she also wrote Granny Can’t Remember Me, a lighthearted picture book about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. She lives in Seattle with her husband, two sons, and, until recently, her giant Newfoundland dog, Albert. You can find her on Instagram (with yes, more Albert pics) follow her on Twitter at @smccormickbooks and friend her on Facebook.

The Fog Ladies: Family Matters -

Till death do us part, with kitchen shears. What drives a family man to kill his wife? This question haunts Sarah James, a medical resident who meets the unhappy family at a resort near Big Sur. She witnesses how ugly a marriage can be. But murder?

 

Sarah and the spunky Fog Ladies—elderly neighbors from her San Francisco apartment building—set out to discover the truth. Their probing finds the threat is perilously close to home, endangering another troubled family struggling to survive.