THE VARIOUS SERIES CHARACTERS IN THE ROGER AND SUZANNE BOOKS

Roger:  Let’s begin at the beginning.  Roger Bowman and Suzanne Foster first meet in the novella, “The Empanada Affair”, which started out in life as a full-length novel and evolved to the current novella format.  The story is featured in “Five Quickies for Roger and Suzanne”, and includes the detailed backstories for both characters.  Also included in the “Five Quickies” is a short story, “The Dog With No Name”, which describes Roger’s first case as a P.I.   For series aficionados, you’ll know that Roger has also been a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department and a licensed patent attorney

Suzanne:  We first meet Suzanne and learn her background in “The Empanada Affair” in the “Five Quickies”.  I’ve sprinkled bit and pieces expanding on what we know about Suzanne in most of the other novels, so trivia snippets about her life, past and present, are dribbled out through the series.  Suzanne appears in all of the stories, albeit just being mentioned in the shorter stories “The Dog With No Name” and “The Haunted Gymnasium”.  I’ve thought about letting Suzanne have a book (or novella) all her own without Roger, or with Roger in a less prominent role.  Maybe Suzanne will need to step up into the lead role when Roger gets a concussion or a bullet hole to recover from.  Opportunity beckons!  That may happen eventually, but I know not when.

RIES, THE PUPPY, UPDATE

A friend and fellow dog owner came by last week with an invitation to join him hunting Chukar (partridge) and to bring our dogs.  He had several birds left on his card, which expired the next day, to shoot at a local hunting preserve.   So, Elaine, the friend, and I, plus all four of our GSPs went bird hunting on a beautiful, but hot, 80-degree (F) day.   The rest of the story is about Ries, our 6-month-old puppy, one of the four hunting dogs we took along.

SCHÖNE”S LITTER---UPDATED

            The long-anticipated day arrived Monday, 10/21.  The puppies were 8-weeks old and ready to begin relocation to their new homes.  Two of the pups left us---Gil to go to his new home in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains about an hour northeast of us, and Molly to her new home in Silicon Valley, about 2 hours southwest of us.   Gil will be living with two adults and several horses being trained and competing in endurance events.   Eventually, we’ll find out for sure whether an adult GSP can trot along for 20-30 miles without having to breathe hard, but I think all of us who own this breed of dogs already knows the answer to that.  They are incredibly gifted athletes with huge chests and equally huge hearts that translate to great stamina and endurance in the field.   Molly in Silicon Valley will be joining a family with a teenaged son and his younger sister, an ideal situation for a puppy that loves cuddling and people.   She also may have a show career ahead for her based on puppy grades, and will surely have a hunting career based on what the new owners are looking for from their dog.

EARLY PUPPY LIFE: A REPORT AT FIVE WEEKS OF AGE

            Schöne’s puppies were 5 weeks old on Monday, so an update on their progress seems to be timely.  The eight puppies, four boys and four girls, have temporary names (pending the desires of their new owners) now.  They were named for a variation on a theme from the TV show “Wheel of Fortune”, the category of “before and after”.  The first theme is the movie “Pretty in Pink”, a logical extension of Mom’s name, “beautiful” in German.  The fused “after” theme is the band, “Pink Floyd”.  We thank an owner of the puppy’s Uncle Bruce for suggesting this theme. 

THE VERY EFFICIENT HUNTERS

            What do I mean by efficient hunters?   How about getting four pheasants with three shots in less than 20 minutes?  It really happened.  Keep reading for the details.

German Shorthaired Pointers (GSPs)

I came across an interesting blog about GSPs today, courtesy of Robyn.  You can find her blog entitled "Adventures of a GSP Hunting Dog" at http://gsphuntingdog.blogspot.com.   The blog features some great photos of the dogs at work and play, not to mention at mischief.  I was most amused by her description of the breed's ancestry, "I'm pretty sure GSP's are in fact a potent combination of lightning, the common house robber, a sly fox, a velociraptor, a woodchuck, tornadoes and a vacuum cleaner. These cosmic forces clearly banded together and created my dogs."  She obviously knows the breed well.