I am so excited to have Margaret Mizushima here at Mystery Thrillers and Romantic Suspense Reviews with a Spotlight and Guest Post.
Thanks Margaret and Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours for allowing me to join your Hunting Hour Blog Tour!
Please take it away, Margaret!
Guest Post
Today, veterinarian Cole Walker, one of the protagonists in the Timber Creek K-9 mystery series, will be a guest, and he’s here to talk about a subject near and dear to his heart.
KIDS AND DOGS
Kids and dogs go together like…well, like ducks and water. But despite my fondest childhood memories being associated with my dogs, my kids didn’t have a dog for a pet until they were older.
My ex-wife Olivia didn’t want pets in the house, and since she was in charge of the home front, I felt like I needed to respect that. (And truth be told, up until the point when Olivia left me, I wasn’t involved much in the day-to-day raising of the children anyway, one of my life’s regrets.) But when we had the opportunity to take in our Bernese mountain dog Belle, Olivia was no longer in the picture, so I jumped at the chance to give this dog a home and my kids a companion.
When you’re preparing to adopt a dog, whether it’s a puppy or an adult, it’s important to make sure it’s the right dog for you and your family. I tell my clients to do their research. Make sure you understand the feeding, grooming, and exercise needs for the dog you’re considering to bring into your family, so that you can determine if you, your kids, and your home property can meet those needs. If you have children, make sure an adult dog has been socialized well with kids so he won’t be snappish and bite.
Belle is a big dog with a long, thick hair coat that requires daily grooming. I have two daughters who were excited to take that on, so that need was covered. We live in a large house with a big yard, so Belle has plenty of running room. And she was recovering from a gunshot wound, which the kids and I were more than willing to assume the care of.
Now, when it came to adopting our Doberman pinscher Bruno, I admit that I broke all of my own rules. But the dog had helped save my life and he needed a home. What else could I do? When I first met Bruno, he was a guard dog, barking and snarling on the end of a chain. But when my younger daughter Sophie baby-talked him, he morphed into a puppy that wanted to play, so I had a feel for the possibility that he’d been around children before.
After Bruno came to live with us, I set up a strict policy that the kids couldn’t be alone with him until we knew what we were getting into. Off the chain and with plenty of room to roam and exercise, Bruno turned into a pussycat. I set up some alpha training exercises with the kids: having them put him into a down-stay at their feet, taking turns feeding him but giving the food only after he assumed a submissive down position, asking him to release a toy or his food dish without protest and then giving it right back to him if he was submissive. Bruno passed these tests with flying colors, and I soon realized that he was a highly trained protection dog with a good nature, and he’d been well socialized. He fit right in, and I could relax my guard.
If you plan around your pet’s needs, you should have a positive experience, and teaching kids the responsibilities and pleasures of dog ownership at a young age is invaluable. I’m a big believer in it. So if you decide you want to share your life with a dog, do your research and have fun!
Hunting Hour: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery
Mystery/Police Procedurals/Woman Sleuths
3rd in Series
Crooked Lane Books (August 8, 2017)
Hardcover: 320 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1683312772
E-Book ASIN: B06XWFGDY5
Deputy Mattie Cobb is in a dark place and has withdrawn from Cole Walker and his family to work on issues from her past. When she and her K-9 partner Robo get called to track a missing junior high student, they find the girl dead on Smoker’s Hill behind the high school, and Mattie must head to the Walker home to break the bad news. But that’s only the start of trouble in Timber Creek, because soon another girl goes missing — and this time it’s one of Cole’s daughters.
Knowing that each hour a child remains missing lessens the probability of finding her alive, Mattie and Robo lead the hunt while Cole and community volunteers join in to search everywhere. To no avail. It seems that someone has snatched all trace of the Walker girl from their midst, including her scent. Grasping at straws, Mattie and Robo follow a phoned-in tip into the dense forest, where they hope to find a trace of the girl’s scent and to rescue her alive. But when Robo does catch her scent, it leads them to information that challenges everything they thought they knew about the case.
Mattie and Robo must rush to hunt down the kidnapper before they’re too late in Hunting Hour, the third installment in critically acclaimed author Margaret Mizushima’s exhilarating mystery series.
About the Author
Margaret Mizushima is the author of the Timber Creek K-9 mysteries, which includes Killing Trail (Crooked Lane Books, 2015) nominated for an RT Reviewer’s Choice award for best first mystery, Stalking Ground (Crooked Lane Books, 2016) a finalist in the Colorado Book Awards mystery category, and Hunting Hour (Crooked Lane Books, 2017). She has a background in speech pathology and practiced in an acute care hospital before establishing her own rehabilitation agency. Currently, she balances writing with assisting her husband with their veterinary clinic and Angus cattle herd. She enjoys reading and hiking, and she lives on a small ranch in Colorado where she and her husband raised two daughters and a multitude of animals.
Facebook: @authormargaretmizushima
Twitter: @margmizu
Website: www.margaretmizushima.com
Purchase Links
Amazon:
Barnes and Noble:
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Indiebound:
Giveaway
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Please follow the rest of the tour here, thanks:
http://www.escapewithdollycas.com/great-escapes-virtual-book-tours/books-currently-on-tour/hunting-hour-timber-creek-k-9-mystery-margaret-mizushima
