Friday, September 18, 2009

Coffee with a canine: Louise Penny & Trudy

This weekend's featured couple at Coffee with a Canine: Louise Penny & Trudy.

The story of how Trudy came to the household:
We had just lost our first Golden, Bonnie. She was our wedding gift to each other, and a beloved family member. We were inconsolable, as was our surviving dog, Maggie. Now, Maggie adored Bonnie, but Bonnie until the day she died kept expecting Maggie to go back to her real home.

It was so strange having just one dog and we decided we would try to get another in about a year. But knowing how rare it was to have our breeder with a puppy ready when we wanted it, we decided to call and see if they had any plans. They didn't, but a friend of theirs had just had a litter and there was one left. A little girl. We called - knowing in our hearts what that would mean. We went to visit ... still kidding ourselves that we could 'just look'. And, of course, we came home with tiny little eight week old Trudy.

Maggie - a very competitive, alpha dog - adored Trudy from day one. They played and Maggie even let Trudy, who was the size of one of Maggie's ears, knock her down, stand on her chest and have a go at her throat.

Ironically about a week later old Seamus lumbered up our dirt road and into our lives. He was lost - having run away from an abusive and neglectful home. And he was a Golden as well. We took him in and our home was suddenly filled with them. It was a riot. We have since lost Seamus and Maggie. But Trudy remains.[read on]
Louise Penny is an award-winning journalist who worked for many years for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Her bestselling first mystery, Still Life, was the winner of the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys awards; her second, A Fatal Grace, won the 2007 Agatha Award for Best Novel; her fourth, A Rule Against Murder, was a New York Times bestseller.

The Brutal Telling, her fifth Armand Gamache novel, releases this month.

Visit Louise Penny's website and blog.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Louise Penny & Trudy.

--Marshal Zeringue