Writing Inspiration from Real Life

What I've Learned as a Veterinarian's wife

I’ve been married to a veterinarian, now retired, for forty-three years. When I decided to write novels, my life as a vet’s wife gave me oodles of experience and inspiration from which I could draw. From a medical drama to a historical time travel, to a mystery series, my writing revolved around veterinarians and their patients.

It all began decades ago—imagine a time before cell phones—when Charlie took me to a nice restaurant for our first date.

As our server was bringing our meals to the table, Charlie’s pager beeped. He excused himself to find a payphone to dial his answering service. (Remember those ancient devices?) He returned moments later and asked if we could pack up our food. He said he had to run an emergency call because a pit bull terrier had attacked a pony and it needed immediate medical attention.

I lived fifteen miles away, and he didn’t have time to take me home, so I rode along with him.

We drove across town to a stable where his patient stood under a dim yard light, trembling and in shock, strips of flesh hanging from its neck and shoulders. For nearly two hours, Charlie painstakingly stitched that pony back together. I don’t know how the little horse survived, but it did.

It was a precursor to countless missed dinners and times that I acted as an impromptu assistant, but I wasn’t put off. It helped that I’d been raised on a cattle ranch and worked in a hospital. I knew how to handle a bit of blood and gore.

After we married, even holidays weren’t spared from interruption. One Christmas, years later, our adult daughter brought her boyfriend home to meet the family. True to form, Charlie got an emergency call on Christmas Day from a client with a pregnant bulldog that needed a C-section delivery. We all trooped up the lane to Charlie’s clinic to help. After delivering the puppies one by one, he handed each of us a wriggling, wet baby, which we wrapped in towels and rubbed vigorously to stimulate breathing. My daughter’s friend said it was one of the most memorable Christmases he’d ever had.

For us, it was par for the course, and I used the experience in an early chapter of my seventh book, Striking Range, when the protagonist, Cole Walker, his two daughters, and his assistant deliver puppies via C-section.

An earlier experience happened when our daughters were very young. Following the tragic loss of a toddler in the wilderness area near our Colorado home, Charlie and I decided to take two of our dogs to train with the county search and rescue group. I spent the days watching and studying the different search styles of our dogs. Our Australian shepherd preferred to track with her nose to the ground, while our Rottweiler alternated between nose to the ground and sniffing with her nose up as she air-scented her targets. I grew to understand the value of these air-scenting dogs on a search and rescue team, and later wrote a scene about it in my ninth book, Gathering Mist.

I once shadowed a client of my husband who trained patrol and protection dogs. After watching several handlers in different training exercises, I asked questions about working K-9s and the mistakes that a rookie handler might make. It was great information for creating the K-9 team featured in my series, Deputy Mattie Cobb and her German shepherd partner, Robo.

My life as a vet’s wife may have inspired the Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries, but the books also feature plenty of law enforcement and K-9 work. Thanks to my husband and several K-9 handlers who’ve agreed to act as consultants, I have the information needed to keep the law enforcement and vet work real while I spin tales of murder and mayhem. I invite you to join me for these adventures. Each episode stands alone, but if you like to start with book one in a series, go with Killing Trail.