When I was a little girl my mother subscribed to the Weekly Reader.

In case you don’t know what this is, every week (I believe!) a new book would come in the mail.

There was nothing like that feeling of opening the mailbox and finding the tell-tale cardboard envelope that meant Book Inside!

I think there was more than one kind of subscription, but my mom got all of them. She grew up without many books, and that was one of the few things she didn’t skimp on for us.

Many of those books had illustrations. I don’t just mean the picture books for the younger readers. I mean, the chapter books had illustrations all throughout them.

I never see this anymore, at least not as often. While writing Tiger Tricks, I kept thinking, wouldn’t it be great if I could add a few illustrations like the kind I remember in books when I was a kid?

I’ve been friends with Harriet Adams almost my entire life and she has been an artist as long as I’ve known her. She loves to draw and I’m incredibly lucky to be able to share her beautiful and endearing work in this book.

She has a happy whimsical style that I thought lent itself perfectly to my vision for this book.

When I considered writing a book about a dalmatian and a fireman, I knew that I didn’t want to just insert a dalmatian as an afterthought or like a decoration in the story. Like Rhett said, dogs aren’t house plants or fashion statements. They are living, breathing creatures.

Dalmatians are famous for their beauty, their distinctive white coats with black spots, and their place in art and literature.

What you may not know is that like Oscar said — having a pet dalmatian really is like having a pet tiger. They are not dogs for people with young children, or for people who are gone all the time, or for people who do not have a lot of real experience with extensive dog training.

Dalmatians are work dogs. They were bred to run alongside carriages and protect the horses. In fact, dalmatians get along very well with horses.

They became famous as symbols of the fire house because they actually worked with firemen before the age of modern cars. When the fire cart left the station, the dalmatians would run out into the street and bark to warn everyone to get out of the way.

Then they ran alongside the horses, keeping them focused and calm. While at the fire, the dogs kept the horses from spooking from the fire, and also served to protect the cart.

See how none of this translates into gentle fur baby who can roll around with someone’s three-year-old?

This book was inspired by a video I saw about a dog named Wilshire. He was a dalmatian who was living in an apartment with a couple and their ten-year-old daughter. It didn’t take them long to realize that they were in over their head with this too-energetic dog. They offered him to the local fire station, which first turned him down.

But then they got a call from the shelter saying if they didn’t come get him, he will not be alive much longer. So they went and picked him up.

Wilshire (named after the street the fire station was on) was crazy and very badly behaved. They called in the dog whisperer, who did some training with the dog and a LOT of training with the men working in the fire house.

Wilshire ran on the treadmill every morning, he had set rules and he even learned how to do demonstrations for fire safety seminars. You can look him up!

Dalmatians are beautiful creatures. If I was a runner and trained for races and needed a running companion, had no children, and no other animals, no job, and wanted a new intensive hobby of expensive dog training in all of my spare time, a dalmatian would be right for me.

A dalmatian is right for Rhett, but a dalmatian is not the right pet for most people. I figure, for those of us who do not have the lifestyle where we can have a dalmatian, we can have the very best kind. One in a book.

And you know what’s funny? After writing Tiger for all these months, I do feel like I have a dalmatian now. And I hope you also have enjoyed “having” Tiger as well.

I have loved writing this book. I really do fall in love with all of my characters. I have a wintery novella coming out soon that tells more of the story with Mike and David from Stray Home, and it has been so fun to spend some time with them. I feel like I should subtitle it, “Fall In Love With Mike All Over Again”!

I am already hard at work on my next novel. It will also be set in Amberly, and include another sweet dog who needs a home. This one will be a rescue. Someone asked me what the dog’s name would be, and I had to honestly answer, “I don’t know. The characters name the dog, not me!”

Follow me to find out the story of Enzo, the sexy new tenant living in Oscar and Rhett’s guesthouse!

Which lonely heart resident of Amberly is the perfect match for Enzo?

Make sure you join my mailing list and follow me on Amazon to find out! I’m really excited about this next book — I think you will be too.

Until then,

Edith Scott