I grew up surrounded by animals. Between my family, my grandparents, and my uncle’s family we had horses, miniature horses, dogs, goats, cats, turtles, fish, peacocks, ducks, canaries, hermit crabs, finches, chickens, and a pot-bellied pig. Our animals are part of the family. For example, my great grandmother very helpfully labeled the backs of pictures, but she only named the animals. They raced greyhounds and she wrote the name, and sometimes pedigree, for every dog in those old pictures; she never did bother to label the humans. That is my bloodline.

Growing up, everyone knew I was an animal lover. My friends, teachers and other adults all thought it was wonderful and tried to encourage me. I was (and still am) a crazed bookworm. I love to read. So when I was in school, adults would recommend books for me to read like Where The Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls or Beauty by Bill Wallace. What horrid books to recommend to a child! The animals die! Tragic, horrid deaths. People gave me these books expecting me to like them! I remember being so embarrassed in third grade because I was quietly reading Beauty during a free moment in class and the boy has to shoot his own horse! I immediately burst into sobs and had to sit in the nurse’s office till I could calm down. What a wretched book. I quickly learned to avoid reading fiction stories about animals. They were always sad.

I did love books such as The Black Stallion by Walter Farley. Those authors got it! The books were great, the stories were wonderful, and everyone lived in the end. That’s the point of fiction! Life doesn’t always give us happy endings so our books should. So that is how this little book came into being. These stories are all true (okay, maybe some slight exaggerations have been made over the years). But the places, the people, and the animals are all real. The events all really happened. These are the stories of some of the animals that were part of my family. And they are all happy stories (okay, except for the snakes but I don’t think anything that includes a snake can be considered happy – I’m slightly biased, and if you read on you will discover why).

So this book is dedicated to all the wonderful animals and people who have always been there for me. They are my family. This is for them.