“Who Said I was up for Adoption?” was an interesting book to write because not only was Ray a huge education for me (being my first dog), but also because he impacted me emotionally on a consistent basis, and in many different ways.

Below is a quote from the book. To set the context, I had already learned the hard way that Ray suffered from startle response. i.e. do not wake him up or otherwise surprise him. Almost 80lbs of German Shepherd/Rottweiler X in aggression mode is rather disconcerting!

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On one particular occasion I was, once again, sitting on the edge of my bed working on my laptop and Ray was on my bed sleeping, when his feet started gently moving.  I watched him for a few seconds and then went back to my laptop wondering what he was dreaming about this time. Perhaps he was chasing a squirrel or a rabbit?

A few moments later I heard a quiet whimpering crying-like sound and turned to look, but he was still asleep and his feet had stopped moving. It was quite a pitiful sound and poor Ray was clearly not happy in his dream. I contemplated waking him up, but then thought better of it based on my earlier experiences! He quietened down and seemed quite relaxed, so I returned to work on my laptop. A few moments later there was this loud and quite painful cry which was repeated four times. I have never heard such sobbing with apparent pain. It was so much worse than when he had his first heart-worm injection and he could not get comfortable in his crate. Such a heart wrenching sound, and all I wanted to do was give him a big reassuring hug to let him know that all was well … but of course I couldn’t. Poor Ray, and all we can do is love him and take care of him. That does not seem enough somehow.

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For more information on “Who Said I was up for Adoption?”, please select/click the book cover  over in the right column.