Dean Koontz, the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers, lives in Southern California with his wife, Gerda, their golden retriever, Elsa, and the enduring spirits of their goldens, Trixie and Anna.
I have written many books with dogs in major roles, but the real dogs that graced my life have given me more than just material on which to base characters in my novels. My wife, Gerda, and I have been blessed with three release dogs from Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), the premier provider of service dogs in the U.S., with which we have been involved for decades. Each dog enriched our lives, which is what dogs want to do.
Trixie was the first of those three golden retrievers. She had been trained as a service dog and was paired with a lovely woman who lost her legs in an accident. When Trixie needed elbow surgery, she could no longer be in service. She was 3 when she came to live with us.
As a lifelong workaholic, I was accustomed to leaving my home office no earlier than 7 in the evening. From her first day in our family, Trixie would have none of that. Promptly at 5, she inserted herself between my office chair and desk, put her head in my lap and with her beautiful golden eyes insisted on my attention. When I tried to type one more sentence, she repeatedly stuck her snout under my wrist and threw my hand off the keys. I stopped work at 5. Thirty years later I still do.
During our 10 years together, Trixie barked just twice. She had been trained to speak only when given the command to summon help for the person with a disability whom she served. Startled, we tried to quiet her, but she would not obey. Slowly -- too slowly! -- we realized she was trying to warn us of some danger. She raced to the far end of the house with me in pursuit. In the kitchen, I discovered a fire burning fiercely inside an oven. If I had been any slower, it might have spread into the wall. In addition to the laughter, love and adventures Trixie shared with us, she saved our house!
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She also wrote five books, including Life Is Good and Bliss to You. Cynics say I wrote them and put her name on them. That is a monstrous lie. All I did was correct a few of Trixie's misuses of the semicolon.
When she suffered an aggressive cancer, no treatment proved effective. To spare her pain, the only merciful choice was for Gerda and I to hold her and express our love as the veterinarian administered drugs that put her to sleep and stopped her heart. The grief was devastating. We couldn't find the courage to have another dog -- and face another such loss -- for 8 months. Then Canine Companions needed a home for another retriever, Anna.
Anna had gone through 20 months of a 24-month training program before it became clear she would not be a service dog. We once said such furry students "failed out," but we are now more discreet and say they "had a career change." Anna's problem was a fascination with birds. If a hawk flew low overhead, Anna would stand transfixed, watching it float on the rising thermals. When she chased a bird across the yard, she always leaped high when it took off, not in an attempt to catch it, but as if she thought she too could launch into flight. Tethered to a wheelchair, she might take off after a bird, dragging her partner into danger.
The only time I heard her bark was when a great blue heron landed in our courtyard. When that immense bird displayed its 6-foot span of wings, Anna whimpered with what I swear was envy, rolled onto her back and bared her belly: one would-be bird acknowledging this 5-foot-tall king of birds.
I have never seen a faster animal than Anna. At the time, we had a large backyard. Anna loved to sprint around the perimeter. When I stood in the center of the lawn, she could navigate the entire perimeter faster than I could turn in place to keep my eyes on her.
She wrote only one book, Ask Anna, a volume of advice for dogs. She made no mistakes with the semicolon. I had to correct only one use of "who" when it should have been "whom."
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Anna, too, passed with cancer. Gerda and I thought we would need many months, as before, to take on another dog and risk losing it. However, our grief was at its peak when friends from Canine Companions came to visit and said another release dog needed a home. We were grieving and not ready to adopt. Then they showed us a photo of Elsa. Tears flooded our eyes, and we said, "We'll take her!"
After 21 months of a 24-month training program, Elsa had a career change because she wanted to cuddle instead of work. What more desirable quality could a family dog possess? She is an ebullient girl who doesn't want to take long walks and doesn't spend much time with toys. She prefers to circulate among the friends who work here with Gerda and me, conning them and us into as many cuddling sessions as possible.
Although she has no desire to write a book, she is working on a screenplay. As both a canine and a writer, she is displeased with me because there is no dog in my most recent novel, Going Home in the Dark; however, she is happy that I included a dog in each of the next two. If human beings were as forgiving as dogs, this would be a better world.
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Going Home in the Dark by Dean Koontz is available now, wherever books are sold.