Friday, January 21, 2011

Coffee with a canine: Leona Wisoker & Leo and Shadow

This weekend's featured trio at Coffee with a Canine: Leona Wisoker & Leo and Shadow.

The author, on how the dogs joined her household:
Both are shelter rescues. Leo came from a no-kill shelter in Hampton called Animal Aid; he had been brought there as a very young puppy. He was adopted out once, and the couple returned him because he was "too rambunctious"--which is stupid, because of course a large-breed puppy is going to be destructively obnoxious for the first two years of his life. He was about a year and a half old when I found him, and he adopted me more than anything else. He was so thoroughly wired and excitable when I adopted him, and he is such a big dog, that the shelter was a little concerned whether I (at 5'1") could handle him; but the first thing he did when he got to his new home was to climb on the couch and go to sleep. And once we sorted out what food he did best on, about eighty percent of the wildness just disappeared. Shadow was adopted from the SPCA as a very young puppy. We picked him out around Christmas, and the shelter staff wouldn't let us take him home until after the holiday; they didn't want "puppy under the tree" syndrome, which I can understand. So we took a towel, laid it in Leo's bed, brought it with us every day to go cuddle the puppy in, then put it back in Leo's bed. So they knew each other before they ever met, and Shadow's name has proven very apt: he is, literally, "Leo's Shadow". He...[read on]
Leona Wisoker's short stories have appeared in Futures: Fire to Fly Magazine, Anotherealm.com, Alienskin.com, and more. She is a regular reviewer for Green Man Review and its spinoff, The Sleeping Hedgehog.

Her latest novel is Secrets of the Sands.

Read an excerpt from Secrets of the Sands, and learn more about the book and author at Leona Wisoker's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Secrets of the Sands.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Leona Wisoker & Leo and Shadow.

--Marshal Zeringue