Our dogs’ first fight

The other day, while Mia and Leo were tussling on the back patio, I heard the tone of their conversation change. Mia’s growls sounded meaner; Leo let out some hurt-sounding high-pitched barks. I looked outside and saw that Mia’s jaw was tangled in Leo’s collar.

I know that you’re supposed to separate dogs by grabbing from their hips, but what do you do if they’re stuck together? Probably not stick your hand in their faces and try to disengage their mouths. I felt Leo’s teeth bite down on my hand and pulled it back. His collar was pulled tight against his neck, but fortunately, the clasp was on the back of his neck where I could release it without endangering my hand further. As soon as the collar fell, the dogs went back to normal. My hand had blood on it (mine) and hurt like it had been slammed in a door.

I rinsed off my hand and grabbed an ice pack. He broke the skin in two places, but nothing that required medical attention.

My mother, who is visiting, walked in the room from the other side of the house, unaware of what had happened. I told her there had been a little incident, but everything was fine now. Meanwhile, could she chop the vegetables for the skillet meal I was planning to make?

Leo came inside and kind of cowered behind my mom’s legs while she sliced. Leo doesn’t know my mom well, but she was there the day he came to live with us, so maybe he remembers this nice lady who kept him safe after his unhappy first interaction with a different adult female shepherd.

Later that evening, something happened when Mom was in the kitchen and Rob was walking from the computer room to the TV room. The dogs got into it in the kitchen until we separated them and put them both outside. They were fine after that.

They slept in the same room with us as usual and were lying on the floor nose to nose when I got out of the shower the next morning. Before I left for work, Mia was inside and Leo was outside. I reached for Leo’s collar to lead him past Mia to his crate. Duh, right? It reminded him of having her pulling his collar and she was right there. They got into it. This time I used the hip-grabbing method, but had a hard time breaking them up. Eventually I got Leo into his crate and Mom and I left for the day.

After work, I let Mia out first, and then got Leo out of his crate. As I opened the sliding glass door so Leo could join her, I thought, “Oh, I should take their collars off,” but before I could even reach for them, the dogs were fighting and it was bad. I redirected them to the main part of the yard, thinking they’d settle matters and move on, but the fight intensified. This was something I didn’t think I had to worry about anymore. They’re best friends! They don’t fight!

I couldn’t get them apart. Rob wasn’t home. I didn’t want my mom and aunt inside to even know there was a fight going on. I grabbed one dog by the hips and tried to pull them apart. The other dog held on. I tried grabbing the other. I couldn’t get between them. Finally, I moved them inside the dog run and managed to shove Leo to the outside of the gate. I took Mia inside. Leo continued barking at her, but it wasn’t the panicked spastic barking that Isis used to do. More like, “Oh, yeah, come back over here and let’s finish this!”

Rob pulled in the driveway. I went outside and sat down on the ground between our two cars to tell him what had happened without alerting my mother and aunt.

He said, “Maybe I’ll take them both out back and see what they do… wait, is Mia bleeding?”

Yes, she was, she had a puncture wound on her front leg. I took her to the vet where they cleaned it up and told me it would heal on its own. They also shaved around it, which is charming since she still hasn’t grown back the fur on her other leg where they shaved all the way around to anesthetize her to have a tooth pulled. Does fur grow slower in older dogs?

I kept them apart until Rob was done with his class. Mia in the bedroom, Leo out back and in the kitchen. I had a lovely dinner with my mother and aunt, feeling stressed and upset the whole time. I am a master of keeping dogs separated, but I didn’t want to have to do that anymore.

Leo sat very calmly on the kitchen floor, smiling. Yesterday, he did that with Mia right next to them. Were they not going to be able to be in the same room together like that anymore? Mia whimpered from the bedroom. I realized she’d never had a chance to relieve herself so I took her for a short walk.

After Rob’s class, we decided to try reintegrating them. Collars off. Mia was inside, whining because she wanted to be with Rob and Leo on the other side of the dog run gate. Both dogs had calm looks on their faces and wagging tails. Leo did a few play bows and pounces for Rob. They both looked like they wanted to play. We let Mia out. Leo did not charge the fence like Isis used to. I opened the fence. They ran up to each other and resumed their best friend play dynamic.

And all was right with the world again.

My tattoo defense

My parents have each asked me not to get a tattoo.

“Don’t get a tattoo, don’t get a tattoo,” my mother chanted when I broke the news and tried to explain my rationale.

Big surprise. I didn’t think they’d be all, “Yay, tattoos!” But tattoos are so mainstream at this point, I didn’t think they’d be so opposed to it.

It makes me feel bad. I don’t ever want to do anything that my parents disapprove of. But sheesh, I’m almost 36 years old. They’re lucky I didn’t get a stupid dolphin on my ankle when I was 18!

I dressed up as Sporty Spice for Halloween when I was about 23. I got some temporary tattoos for the occasion, including a tribal design that goes around the bicep. I loved the look. Less so the faux gold tooth and the magnetic nose stud.

Around that time, I bought some Japanese symbols that I stuck to my ankle here and there. I remember trying to decide what, if any, Japanese word I should have permanently inscribed on my flesh. Maybe I should get the Libra scales…

Boy am I glad that thought process never moved beyond a fanciful musing. That’s the kind of tattoo a person might regret…or if not regret, at least think to herself, “Gee, I wish I didn’t get the Kanji for ‘love’ tattooed on my ankle like everyone else my age.”

I have never seriously wanted a tattoo before. Here’s why I want one now.

I’m going to love many more dogs in my life. I feel a need to memorialize Isis permanently. A reminder of her, recognizing the special relationship I had with her. I want a small tattoo of her name — four little letters, or more precisely, two letters twice each — on my foot, forever.

We had a painting made from one of her photos. I have a wristwatch with her picture on it. We have her ashes in a box with a photo of her. A stone engraved with her name near the spot where she died. These are keepsakes that will last a long time.

She’s also still the desktop wallpaper on my laptop, and the photo on my cell phone and iPod. (Well, the lock screen is a family photo of me, Rob, Leo and Mia; but the wallpaper is Isis.)

At some point, I’m going to get a new phone or iPod and maybe I’ll use a photo of a different dog. Maybe there will be a point when I don’t incorporate Isis in the header for this blog.

But a tattoo of her name on my foot. That’s forever. Something special just for her. Just for me. It’s something that I think will help me in my grieving process.

I don’t see how you can argue with that.

Down with DVDs

Yesterday I sang the praises of streaming Netflix. Then I went home and watched the DVD that I’ve had for a few weeks since I got it for Rob’s dad the weekend he stayed with the dogs.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1.

Man, what a lot of bullshit you’ve got to get through before you get to the movie. All these trailers and video game commercials and you have to fast-forward, because you can’t skip them or go straight to the menu.

And that’s when the DVD player is working. We’ve had some problems with multi-disc players that don’t recognize a disc is in there, or just says, “Loading, loading,” for 10 minutes, or skips and stutters and pauses. We really like having a DVD player that will play 5 or 6 discs, but get this…with instant streaming…you can play unLIMITED numbers of discs.

So yeah, Netflix, I started to have some hesitation about canceling the DVD portion of your service once you hike your rates. (Which I think is really unfair to longtime customers. Couldn’t you just apply the new rates to new customers?) Because there are still movies in my queue that I haven’t watched. They’ve been there for 8 years. And you don’t stream all of them. But guess what? I can rent them individually from Amazon and not have to wait for the disc to arrive in the mail, and maybe be scratched, and maybe not play, and maybe sit around for an entire month (or more) so I wind up paying $7.99 (or more) for that one rental.

So there.

The only problem with this plan is that when our internet goes down, we’ll really have nothing to do but read books.

Good Joss

I’ve been rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and am nearing the end of Season 5. You know, the one where Buffy dies? (Spoiler)

I didn’t actually start at the beginning. For some reason, I only own seasons 3 and 6 on DVD. When we got stationary bikes in our backyard martial arts studio, I thought it would be fun to watch Buffy on my iPod while riding the bike. I painstakingly transferred all of Season 3 (the one with Faith) to my mobile device. I thought when I finished Season 3 that I would just jump to Season 6,  but then I discovered that Netflix streams the entire Buffy series. And I was hooked. All we needed was wi-fi in the studio.

Let me digress to tell you that it took no fewer than four different routers and about 10 visits from two different computer specialists (who also are friends) to get the wi-fi rolling in the studio, while also working in the house and not screwing up the TiVo connections. Rob’s network connections between wired computers in the house are still screwed up. None of that matters, though, because I can watch Buffy on my iPod while riding the bike. (And also write emails and check Facebook.)

Then a wonderful thing happened. All the good shows ended for the summer and, having nothing else to do because the weather has been totally crappy, I started watching Buffy on the HDTV in the house. And I can’t stop. I’ve been watching two or three episodes a day. Let me tell you, it holds up! I can’t speak for seasons 1 and 2, although I will revisit them after I get through Season 7. I’ve heard a rumor that Season 1 — the one where Buffy dies the first time (spoiler) — is dated.

I’m especially enjoying Spike character arc, knowing what will happen in Season 6. And boy, did I have a new appreciation for Riley in Season 4 (the one with the Initiative). At the time, like all sensible young women, I pined for Angel and thought he’d be better off with Buffy than in Los Angeles with his own show. But upon this viewing, I liked Riley an awful lot. He was a good character and a good boyfriend. I’m really looking forward to his return in Season 6 when Buffy’s working at the fast food joint and greets him with, “My hat has a cow.”

The original airing of Season 5 coincided with my last months in graduate school and my first months in Prague, so I don’t remember each episode that well. An exception is, of course, “The Body” (the one where Buffy’s mom dies. Spoiler). Here’s what’s funny. I remember that episode so well, and yet I had completely forgotten that she’d had a brain tumor. My memory was just that Buffy came home and found her dead. Not that she’d been hospitalized and operated on for a brain tumor but was presumably healed.

I won’t lie. “The Body” was kinda tough for me to watch, because of its parallels to the discovery of Isis’ body last winter. I considered turning it off; why torture myself?

I’m glad I watched it all, though, if only to hear Anya’s tearful speech. The thousand-year-old ex-demon asks Willow and Xander how she was supposed to act:

“Am I supposed to be changing my clothes a lot? Is that the helpful thing to do?” (Because that’s what Willow’s doing.)

Then she says:

“I don’t understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she’s, there’s just a body, and I don’t understand why she just can’t get back in it and not be dead anymore! It’s stupid! It’s mortal and stupid! And, and Xander’s crying and not talking, and, and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well, Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, ever, and she’ll never have eggs, or yawn or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why.”

Later, while waiting in the morgue with the gang, she tells Buffy:

“I wish that Joyce didn’t die … because she was nice. And now we all hurt.”

It’s just a really good show. Rob and I have rewatched old The X-Fileses too, and I gotta say, they don’t grab me the way they first did. They’re kinda slow-paced.

One criticism I have of Buffy is the blatant use of stunt doubles. I totally bought the fight scenes when Buffy originally aired, but it seems so obvious to me now when the person doing the fighting is not actually Sarah Michelle Gellar. They cut to her face, I can hear her voice oofing and grunting (as dubbed in post-production), but some other martial artist is doing the fighting. It was more offensive in Season 3. Maybe she got more training and did more of her own stunts in the later seasons. After all, she did her own singing.

Adventures in animal rescue

The doggies were in the backyard yesterday afternoon while I was working at home. They started barking like crazy at the fence, and I figured the golden retriever next door was giving them the business. But then they ran inside the house and started barking out the front window. Then they ran back outside and went into what I like to call their “hidey hole.” It’s the space in the blackberry bushes that they used to escape the yard on the creek side of our house. We put up some chain link so they shouldn’t be able to actually get out of the yard that way.

I went out the front door to look along the side of the house from that direction, expecting to see the doggies sitting on the other side of that chain link. As I opened the door, a little red and white dog, sort of like a King Charles Cavalier, bolted out from under my car and ran toward the street.

Well, that explained the ruckus. I walked down the driveway to see if I could catch the little guy, but he had moved so fast he was long gone.

I went back to the side of the house, where I found Mia sniffing along the bank of the creek. The chain link was flat on the ground. Leo was still on the yard side of the gate. I resituated the chain link and brought the dogs in the house.

Several hours later, they started barking out the front window again, and I saw TWO dogs running down the driveway. The same red and white one, and this guy:

Rob says word must have gotten out that I’m adopting doggies.

Neither of them had collars. The red and white guy ran away, but this guy hung around. He wouldn’t come to me when I offered him treats, and seemed more interested in playing in the creek.

I went back inside and the dogs started barking at the back door. The little white guy had wandered into the dog run. He was dirty enough that he could have been a stray, or he could have just gotten that way from the creek. I closed him in the dog run, where he cowered in the corner.

My first thought was to figure out where to take him so someone could read his microchip, if he had one. Rob, who is much more hospitable than me, offered him food and water. The animal shelter and our vet were closed, so the thing to do was call 911 and have the animal control guy on duty call me back.

Meanwhile, Rob, who is also a better detective than I am, remembered that the old lady three doors down has little dogs, so he went over to check with her.

He was gone a long time. The animal control guy called and said he’d be right over. I saw the red and white guy running next to our neighbor’s house, so I rang their bell to make sure they didn’t have any little dogs I didn’t know about. They did not, but they said that those dogs had been running around all day.

I remembered seeing the animal control truck on our street earlier in the day. Had this been a daylong doghunt? Boy was I clever, to be the only one to contain one of these elusive creatures.

Rob came down the driveway of the old lady’s house. A woman about 70 years old pulled up and Rob went up to her car window to show her a picture on the back of his digital camera. “Is this your dog?” “Yes it is.”

Seems easy enough, but what I missed was that this woman was actually the daughter of the really old woman who lives in that house. Rob had rung the bell and stepped far back on the porch. He didn’t want her to think he was running some scam. “Hey, I’m looking for my puppy, little girl. Do you want to come with me in my windowless van to look for my puppy?”

He asked her if her dogs were missing and she said, “Noooo.” He showed her the picture on his camera. “Nooo, that’s not my dog.” I’m paraphrasing the rest, since I wasn’t there. She said she has four dogs, but that wasn’t one of them. Rob asked if she wanted to go take a head count and make sure. “Oh, maybe that is my dog…”

So good thing her daughter got there when she did. We returned the little white guy, whose name is Trigger, and told the nice animal control guy that we’d found his owner, and apologized for his having to come out.

“But, uh, there’s a little red and white dog running around that’s theirs too. He’s really fast. I couldn’t catch him. So, uh, if you want to go over there and help them out with that.”

He called a few minutes later and said that they got that dog back home too.

… OK, OK, I know this isn’t the most dramatic or exciting dog rescue story. But every time I see a loose dog, I want to make sure it’s safe, because I’d hope someone would do the same for me. Maybe Trigger and his buddy would have wandered home eventually, but they’d been out and about all day, so maybe not. I’m glad we were able to make sure they got home.

There ain’t no cure, there ain’t no cure, there ain’t no cure for TMJ

My TMJ on the left side has been bothering me for about a year now. What I remember when my right side hurt several years ago was that nothing fixed it, but the pain eventually faded. So I have that to look forward to.

Again, I feel like I’ve tried everything. Each time, I have high hopes that some new thing will cure it. I tried chiropractic for the first time this round, and after two sessions, I thought, “Yes! It’s getting better.” But then he adjusted me using the little activator thingy against the jaw joint itself and I think that made things worse for a few days. Also, on my first visit, he gave me a little lesson in semantics:

“TMJ refers to the temporomandibular joint. What you’re describing is TMD, temporomandibular disorder.”

Later I realized that what I shoulda said was, “Oh, yeah? Well, ‘doctor’ refers to someone with an MD … It’s a semantics thing.” (Jerk store!)

Be that as it may, the sentence “My TMJ is bothering me” is still accurate. It would be “I have TMJ” that he objects to. Since everyone has TMJ. Most of us have two.

What frustrates me every time is practitioners who expect me to feel complete relief after each session. It makes me want to lie. “Oh yeah, I’m totally better.” Because I feel like I’m doing something wrong if I keep coming back saying, “Yep. Still bothers me. No improvement at all. Keep doing that same thing that you did last time that didn’t work.”

My favorite treatment at this time is massage therapy. For a while, I had trouble finding a massage therapist I liked. And now I’ve found one who’s covered by my insurance. I don’t have any real expectation that massage with cure my TMJ/D, but hey, it feels good.

A few weeks ago, my therapist told me that my insurance company likes to see a steady rate of treatment, rather than someone coming in for a massage here and there, just ‘cus it feels good. So I attempted to make appointments every week for the next few weeks. She was booked last week though, so I had one scheduled for today.

Then, a week ago, I tweaked my neck. Despite alternating ice and heat and a visit to the airport massage bar, it bothered me to distraction at work almost all last week. So when they called to tell me my massage therapist had an opening Friday, I took it.

She was surprised that I still wanted to keep my appointment for today. Like, “Two massages in a four-day period? Really? Uh, OK, if that’s what you want to do. It’s your body.”

Why should I feel self-conscious about that? You said I should come in more regularly! My neck was still kinda sore, you know! It’s still sore now, after my second massage in four days. Even though when she finished both times, I said, “Oh wow, it’s so much better.” It was better of course, but not cured.

There’s no cure.

Dog under the influence

Leo and Mia are best friends. They chew on each other’s faces and make growly sounds that sound like chanting Tibetan monks. They each take one end of a squeaky toy and tug. When I take Leo for a walk by himself, he stalls on the driveway, as if to say, “Wait, isn’t Mia coming?”

Mia had a tooth pulled and Leo spent hours licking that side of her face, and she let him, even offered her face to him, so he’d keep doing it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to come home and see them sniffing around the front yard, since they were in the fenced yard with Rob when I left. It was quite a mystery at first, because Rob was in the shower, and the front door and side gate were still closed. Later I realized that they’d squeezed through the blackberry bushes on the creek side of the house and escaped to the front yard.

A day or so later, Leo came trotting around that side of the house by himself while I was bringing groceries in from my car. Even though Mia was smart enough to stay in back that time, I realized that she was probably the ring leader, since she is accustomed to a life unrestrained by fences, and Leo’s lived here a year without figuring out he could escape via that side of the house. We put up some chain link to keep them in. They’ve hung out together a few times in the bushes since then, but haven’t been able to get past the chain link.

Other than that, Mia has  been a perfect angel. She has no bad habits at all, and has been a very good influence on Leo. He destroys stuff less often — although when he destroys stuff, he destroys it really bad — he has almost completely stopped attention seeking by attacking Rob’s ankles and legs, and he spends more time curled up peacefully, rather than looking for trouble.

My dentist, a dog aficionado, warned me that rescue dogs are really well-behaved at first, so grateful are they to be in a loving home. After six weeks, though, they realize that you’re going to keep them around and they start showing their true selves. No, no, not my Mia, I thought. Her true self is sweet and mellow. Even the folks at the vet are impressed with her temperament.

But Leo’s demon self might be a more powerful influence than I thought. This morning, Rob found them in the backyard, poised like two zombies over a carcass, ripping out the innards of a lawn chair cushion. Both of them! Not just Leo while Mia watched. She was right there with him, participating in the depravity.

Later, while Rob was working out in the studio, the two dogs waited outside the door, as they usually do. When he came out, he found the shattered remains of a ceramic skull, left on the doorstep like some kind of ominous warning.

Maybe we shouldn’t let them watch The Walking Dead with us anymore.

The girl with the Isis tattoo

The fact that I don’t have a tattoo is something of a point of pride, like not being married. The longer I go without having a tattoo or being married, the prouder I am of both.

Jennifer Aniston recently had her dog Norman’s name tattooed on her foot. That’s a tattoo that makes sense to me. In theory, I would like to have the name “Isis” tattooed on my body. Not that I could ever forget her, but I’d have her always with me.

Where would I put such a tattoo? Ankles are a popular spot, but I don’t know, seems a little trendy. A tramp stamp or cleavage tattoo? Definitely no. Hands and arms are too visible. The back of my neck would be a good, subtle place, because it would only be seen if I lift up my hair, but duh, I’d want to be able to see it!

So yeah, I guess ankle or foot. Not that I actually have plans to get a tattoo.

Spider-Man’s Balls

Here’s where my blog gets all edgy and PG-13.

A few years ago, during a visit to my hometown of Los Angeles, we made a couple of laps around the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It’s one of Rob’s favorite pastimes. A dude in a cheapie Spider-Man outfit was crouched on a trash can, facing the people passing by on the sidewalk. From our vantage point, and because of the stretchy material of his costume, I could discern the outline of his genitals.

I said to Rob, “Hey, look, Spider-Man’s balls!”

As I’m sure would be the case with any couple, the expression “Spider-Man’s balls” became quite the catchphrase in our household. If I want to persuade Rob to come with me to Los Angeles for any reason, all I have to do is say, “Spider-Man’s balls.”

For example, it was the lure that got him interested in going to see Daryl Hall and John Oates for an Independence Day spectacular at the Hollywood Bowl this weekend. And what a successful side trip to the Walk of Fame it was. He posed with three different Spider-Men, Rambo, Marilyn Monroe, Batman and Catwoman (leading me to coin the phrase “Cat Nip Slip”), but his favorite part was taking self-portraits of himself with Spider-Man’s back to the camera. Rob would take a picture, look at it, crack up laughing, then take another picture. It never stops being funny.

As we walked up Highland to meet my mom and Roy for a pre-Bowl picnic, I kept singing about how I make his dreams come true. Ooh ooh. Ooh ooh.

It was one of our best visits to LA ever. Which is saying a lot, since we didn’t even go to Disneyland or acquire a dog on this trip! But the weather was beautiful and every activity was a rollicking success, and I didn’t even feel the stress and time pressure that I so often feel when I have 16 different activities lined up for a single day.

I was forced to spend $45 at Amoeba Music though. Usually I wait in the car while Rob shops. I’m just not into music shopping the way I am into book shopping. And they have no place to sit or go to the bathroom. So I used the restroom at the ArcLight and planned to walk over to Borders Books and read something until Rob was through at Amoeba. (Another possibility would have been to sneak into part of a movie, which I did consider.) Sadly, Borders on Sunset is no more, so instead, I sat down by a fountain in front of the LA Film School, swinging my legs over the edge while I called my mother. I watched people pose with Optimus Prime in front of the Cinerama Dome across the street until a crazy man walked by, looked straight at me and said, “Fucking whore!” I made eye contact and there was no doubt, the insult was meant for me. Quite demoralizing.

I went into Amoeba, told Rob we’d have to go see Optimus Prime after he was done, then accidentally bought the following CDs: A collection of interviews with Tori Amos, an unauthorized biography of Tori Amos, Tibetan monks chanting, meditation bowl music and Shinto Shrine songs.


I was surprised how much the whole family enjoyed Hall and Oates, especially since we had to borrow a Greatest Hits CD to remember what all their hits were.

Write what you know

When I started NaNoWriMo in November 2009, I wanted to write something that was actually fiction, rather than a thinly veiled version of my life. I thought, “What can I write about, that I know a lot about, but that wouldn’t be about me?” Of course! Mixed martial arts. Rob’s passion.

I gave up trying to write it in one month, thought about it quite a bit over the next year, then signed up to take a 3-term novel-writing class at WWU starting last fall. The novel has come a long way since then, and I still feel like it has great potential and is totally original and marketable. Plus, I expanded the plot to include my passion: dogs!

The past couple of weeks, I’ve been on a stay-at-home, play-with-the-dogs, write-a-novel vacation. I felt way more productive last week, because it was sunny and warm, so I’d write a few pages, go lie down on the grass with my dogs in the backyard, rinse and repeat. Still, I accomplished what I set out to do, which was to produce 10 pages a day. This is a somewhat misleading goal, since it involves rewriting and combining scenes that already were written. I didn’t write 10 brand new pages each day. But the important thing is that I now have about 100 pages of novel to show for myself.

Yesterday, I felt a little bogged down in the martial arts stuff, which is peculiar, since that’s what the book is about. At this stage of my writing, I have two main audiences in mind. People like Rob, who will read my book because it’s about martial arts, and the people in my writing class (we’re continuing to meet monthly even though the course is over) who don’t know anything about martial arts, don’t really even like martial arts, but who like my writing and have been enormously helpful in developing my book so far.

The people in my class are not going to enjoy reading 30 straight pages about grappling and hubud and cage matches. But all that stuff needs to be written. Before I share it with them, I’m going to have to take a hard look at it and anticipate them saying that they don’t understand my description of what the hell hubud is. How does the hubud scene advance the narrative, other then to show that the heroine likes the way her instructor’s arms feel against hers?

I feel better about it today after working on some dog stuff. The main dog is absolutely a fictional character. He’s a pit bull named Apollo and I love him. I have a vision of what the book cover will look like: A silver pit bull with a pink boxing glove in his mouth. The title: Fight Like a Lady.

Don’t steal my idea, OK?