gilda_elise: (Books-Birds with book)
A Dog's Perfect Christmas


The perfect, feel-good holiday gift from W. Bruce Cameron, the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the A Dog’s Purpose series

The problems fracturing the Goss family as Christmas approaches are hardly unique, though perhaps they are handling them a little differently than most people might. But then a true emergency arises, one with the potential to not only ruin Christmas, but everything holding the family together.

Is the arrival of a lost puppy yet another in the string of calamities facing them, or could the little canine be just what they all need?

A Dog’s Perfect Christmas is a beautiful, poignant, delightful tale of what can happen when family members open their hearts to new possibilities. You’ll find love and tears and laughter—the ideal holiday read.


I get the impression that Cameron doesn’t know kids (even though he apparently has some,) because all three in the book are so clichéd it isn’t even funny. Ello (Ello? Ello?! It took awhile to find out that it’s short for Eloise,) the teenager, goes around yelling at her parents, being morose, and just an all around unpleasant person. For half the book she has no redeeming characteristics whatsoever. And what’s with her and her friends’ names? Their names, but none of the other characters’ names, are oddly spelled. Brittne instead of Britney, Soffea, instead of Sophia, Mourgen instead of Morgan.

The twins are even worse. They’re constantly breaking things, they talk in “twin,” and don’t seem to know any English even though they’re three. Or is this really what passes as parenting now?

Oh, and don’t forget the grandfather, who, though grieving (his wife had died two years before,) thinks he should be waited on. He does everything he can to be an unpleasant person. A lot of the time it made the book hard to read.

What makes the book not totally terrible are the dogs. Cameron does have a knack for bringing dogs to life, so that I totally buy into that what I’m reading are really the dog’s thoughts. Unfortunately, the dogs are in the background through most of the book. Its title is totally misleading.

A completely disappointing book; I hope Cameron never goes down this path again.



Mount TBR

Mount TBR 2023 Book Links

Mount TBR 2023 Book Links 1-50 )


51. Lady in Waiting by Susan Meissner
52. Jackdaw (Jackdaw #1) by K.J. Charles
53. Blightborn (Heartland #2) by Chuck Wendig
54. The Harvest (Heartland #3) by Chuck Wendig
55. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
56. Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig
57. The Change by Kirsten Miller
58. The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
59. The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #1) by Anne Rice
60. Abandon by Blake Crouch
61. Planet B (Architects of the Apocalypse #1) by Jasper T. Scott
62. Shiver by Allie Reynolds
63. The Starlite Drive-In by Marjorie Reynolds
64. The Snow by Flint Maxwell
65. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe
66. December by Phil Rickman
67. Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
68. Ariadne's Crown by Meadoe Hora
69. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
70. A Dog's Perfect Christmas by W. Bruce Cameron


Goodreads 70


2023 Monthly Motif

DECEMBER- White-out
“Read a book with a wintery setting or a book with a mostly white cover.”
A Dog's Perfect Christmas by W. Bruce Cameron
gilda_elise: (Wildlife - Polar Bears)
IMG_3061 copy



But not exactly what we were expecting. So much so, that my husband wants to have them redone by the company that did the boys'. Theirs was spot on. Anyway, here you go.

Chihuahua Am Pit Bull Terrier Rat Terrier Sm poodle Cocker Spaniel

Genetic Breed Results
gilda_elise: (Books-Birds with book)
Dog Days


Ericka Waller's Dog Days is a debut novel about the way dogs can bring out the best in us in the face of life's challenges.

George is a grumpy, belligerent old man who has just lost his wife. She has left him notes around the home and a miniature dachshund puppy called Poppy. But George doesn't want a dog, he wants to fight everyone who is trying to help him.

Dan has OCD but has channeled his energy into his career as a therapist. Afraid to acknowledge his true feelings, his most meaningful relationship so far is with his dog Fitz. That is, until Atticus walks into his life.

Lizzie is living in a women's refuge with her son Lenny. Her body is covered in scars and she has shut herself off from the world. She distrusts dogs, but when she starts having to walk the refuge's dog, Maud, things begin to change.

As three strangers' lives unravel and intersect, they ultimately must accept what fate has in store for them with their dogs by their sides. Set against the backdrop of Brighton, Dog Days is an inspiring, unflinching, and deeply moving novel about life, and the way dogs can help us understand it, and each other, a little better.


It’s supposed to be a novel about what it is to be human, but I’d say it’s also about what it is to be a dog to those humans. Because we get to slowly know these characters, and their dogs, as their situations are revealed in each following chapter.

It took longer than I normally like for the characters to come alive for me, because their stories are told in rotating chapters. So you have to read several chapters before George, and Dan, and Lizzie’s stories start to coalesce. But as they do, I couldn’t help but hope that their stories would have happy endings.

Because each has to come to an acceptance, each having suffered loss. Fitz, Poppy, and Maud play a small but integral part in their owners’ opening their lives. It’s lovely to behold. A bonus is how their physical connections, all living in the same area, slowly appear.


Mount TBR

Mount TBR 2023 Book Links

Mount TBR 2023 Book Links 1-35 )

36. The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
37. A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us about the Destiny of the Human Species by Rob Dunn
38. Sparta: Rise of a Warrior Nation by Philip Matyszak
39. Wayward (Wanderers #2) by Chuck Wendig
40. The Summoning God (Anasazi Mysteries #2) by Kathleen O'Neal Gear, W. Michael Gear
41. The Power by Naomi Alderman
42. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
43. Day Zero (Sea of Rust #0) by C. Robert Cargill
44. Dog Days by Ericka Waller


Goodreads 44
gilda_elise: (Wildlife - Praying Otter)
IMG_3037


Sonia is now seven months old. She's settled in; potty training is going well. She loves to run around her back yard:


And in the house.


But what is she? We sent out the DNA swab on Monday, so we should know soon. But does she have Bedlington terrier? Or maybe some Airedale?

Bedlington Terrier Airedale terrier

Or some wirehaired Fox terrier. Or, my guess, some Lakeland terrier.

Wirehaired Fox Terrier Lakeland Terrier

What say everyone else?
gilda_elise: (Wildlife - Polar Bears)
After our boys were gone, we didn't think we'd ever want another dog. But like the wooden wall hanging in our kitchen says, "A house is not a home without a dog." At least, that's the way it is for us. So last month we started looking around. Last friday, on our third attempt at the West Michigan Humane Society, we found Sonia.

Sonia


They think she's around six months old. They don't know for sure because she was found on the streets. How a dog this size managed is beyond me, but she did and now she has a home. We don't what she is, but she's ours now.

gilda_elise: (Wildlife - Polar Bears)
A year ago today I lost my precious Doyle. He wasn’t the friendliest of dogs. Actually, I was about the only person with which he would cuddle. He could be as stubborn as a mule, but so very loving, too. He loved his toys, which he refused to share with his brother. He was fourteen and a half, and seemed to be in good health. But, out of nowhere, cancer was discovered.

Six months and one day ago, we lost his sweet brother, Bodie. My Bodie Bug. It was the day before he would have turned fifteen. He was funny and gentle, and, I have to admit, friendlier than Doyle. Bodie, also, seemed in good health, until surgery to remove a couple of growths kicked off another bout of pancreatitis. His little body couldn’t handle it. I sometimes think that the loss of Doyle played a part in it, too. They were litter mates, and had never been apart. Bodie was more timid afterwards, and less sure of himself.

They loved their walks, and chasing each other around the yard. Though that would lessen as they aged. They loved wearing costumes. Probably because they thought of them as just another sweater, which meant going outside. Which is also probably the reason they were house broken in two days. They figured out right away that going to the door meant we had to let them outside. No matter that it was January and a particularly snowy year. But they loved the cold, hated the heat. And they loved howling along with the tornado siren when it was tested every month during the summer (though Doyle didn’t have enough hound in him to pull it off as well as his brother.)

They are everywhere around me. In the house, in the yard. I still miss them; I think I always will.

I wanted to post about them one last time.


My Boys from Gilda Felt on Vimeo.

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