My favorite books as a child were the C. S. Lewis Narnia tales. My grandma bought me the seven book collection one summer while I was staying with her. I was horrified by the enormous price, $19.95, but grandma didn’t blink an eye since it was for me.

I loved the series, not only because I dreamed of entering a wardrobe and being transported to another world, but also because the stories featured talking animals as many of the main characters. Most of these animals were noble and courageous, traits sometimes lacking in their human counterparts. I became more upset when an animal was harmed in Narnia than when a human fell victim to the same fate. I also felt so sorry for the “dumb,” speechless animals that lived beyond the boundaries of Narnia, back in the “real world.”

Of course, like most girls, I was also “horse crazy.”  I remember hearing my bus driver ask a teenage girl who rode my grade school bus route which she would rather have, a car or a horse? The girl hesitated, but eventually picked the car. I was flabbergasted. Who would ever turn down a horse for a car?

Because of my equine infatuation, many of the books I read, such as Misty of Chincoteague and The Black Stallion, featured the amazing beasts.

The first book I ever remember crying about was Wilson Rawls’ Where the Red Fern Grows. I was stretched out on our couch, cuddled under a blanket, when I reached the last page of the tale of Old Dan and Little Ann, two loyal and loving coonhounds. The ending recounted that the two dogs were buried side by side upon death and between their graves grew a giant red fern. As the story explained, only an angel could plant a red fern and where it grew was considered, in Indian legends, to be a sacred spot. I buried my head under the blanket so no one in my family would see my tears, and tease me, as I finished the book.

The second book that made me sob was also a story about animals, Old Cat and the Kitten by Mary E. Little. The story resembles much of what I encounter today. A young boy begins taking care of an older tomcat and a kitten, but when his family must move, the cats are slated for abandonment because the boy’s father is allergic to them. You cannot know how many times I have heard that same story echoed, not in the pages of a book, but in my real life.

I still have Old Cat and the Kitten on my bookshelf. Mom bought it for me through a book club at school. Even now, when I pulled it down to look at it and read the last few pages, a giant lump formed in my chest and I had to close the cover to stop the emotions.

That is the power of a writer. And of our connection to animals.

From Jack, the faithful canine in the Little House books, to all of the animal characters in Beatrix Potter’s tales, I always found an author’s portrayal of these creatures to be fascinating and, at times, heart breaking.

Much of what I write, also, of course, features animals. If you, too, have a love of animals and of writing for children, check out a contest on the Guide to Literary Agents blog: Dear Lucky Agent Contest for Middle Grade or Young Adult Fiction.

If you spent any time at BarkPark, the dog park that donated one million dollars to area animal welfare organizations and was heaven on earth for many dogs that had never known happiness until they passed through its gates, you will clearly remember Bert. Bert was the dog who always stood at the edge of the BarkPark pond, front feet and legs partially submerged in the water while his back end usually stayed firmly planted on land. Sometimes, he would get all four paws wet, but he would never venture far from the shore. From that position at the water’s edge, Bert would bark a canine song of happiness, a song that expressed the exuberance of every other dog in the park. 

I had an email this week from Bert’s mom, Marcia, letting all of Bert’s friends know that this beloved dog passed away on April 6. Bert had been battling lymphoma for eight months. Bert died sitting outside gazing at his pond, while Marcia and her husband, Lennie, held him in their arms. 

Although, BarkPark closed at the end of the season in 2008, Marcia plans to hold a memorial BarkPark to celebrate Bert’s life, which touched so many people. 

We send our thoughts and prayers to Marcia, Lennie, and the rest of their canine family as they mourn the loss of a very special dog. Good-bye, BarkPark Bert.

To read more about all the good BarkPark has done (and continues to do) for local animal welfare groups, and to see more photos of very happy dogs, visit, www.barkpark.org

This print hung in my bedroom the whole time I was a child and even now adorns the wall of my office and library.

My mom’s Aunt Rita gave her the framed artwork, and another one featuring a blonde girl holding yellow flowers, when mom was still a child herself. Aunt Rita made a prophetic statement at the time, telling mom, “Roberta, maybe someday you’ll have two daughters who look like the girls in these pictures.”

Strangely enough, mom did.

The pictures are prints that were available in the 1960′s through the Northern Tissue Company. The toilet paper gurus featured a series of advertisements with the phrase, “Softness is Northern.” Adorning their rolls of toilet paper, as part of the softness marketing campaign, were paintings by Frances Hook. The artwork, known as the “American Beauties,” featured lovely children in a variety of poses. The pink cheeked, big eyed girls quickly became known as the “Northern Girls,” due to their positioning in the tissue company’s ads and on their products.

To read more about the 1960′s Northern Girls art prints, go to: Northern Girls

Sometime long before I was born Great-Aunt Rita sent off to the Northern Paper Mills to receive the prints that passed from mom to me and my sister, Bobbie. The strange part is, mom not only had two girls who looked very much like the children in those vintage prints, but there were other weird similarities.

Who would have guessed that mom’s brunette daughter would be a huge cat lover? In fact, my first kitten, at the age of five, was all white, like the one in the print. I named her Annabelle.

Additionally, my favorite color has always been blue (thus the print looks really good hanging in my dark blue office).

Finally, like the little girl in the print, I, too, as a child, always wore my hair pulled back in a ponytail, with bangs that my grandma complained extended clear around my head because my aunt got a bit “scissor happy.”

While there were not as many similarities with Bobbie’s print, other than the close resemblance, I still maintain that someone somewhere knew we were on our way and gave mom a heads up.

So perhaps Aunt Rita knew something long before the rest of us did–had a dash of foresight about her great-nieces. But even without a bit of divine prophecy through toilet paper prints, I was always destined to be me–cat lover extraoridinaire.

Slightly different versions of the Northern Girls.

If any of you are going to the Woofstock Rally to protest the use of the gas chamber at the Licking County Animal Shelter, I had word that the “parking base station” will be at 520 Franklin Avenue in Heath, Ohio 43056. Once you get there, people in orange vests will direct to the nearest available parking. Put the Franklin Avenue address into your GPS. They are not having people actually park at the Licking County Animal Shelter, as they do not want to interfere with normal business operations. However, they will be picketing the shelter at 544 Dog Leg Road between 10 am and 2 pm.

If you have questions tomorrow, please call 740-973-6272.

They are also asking people to wear RED. Additionally, they will have gas chamber t-shirts on sale for people to purchase, as well. If you requested a sign, they will also have those for you to pick up.

Please attend if you can and shut down the gas chamber!

A few days ago, I told everyone about the different ideas that you could vote on in the Pepsi Refresh Project. I just found out today that Dogs Deserve Better, the group that urges people to take dogs off of chains and bring them into homes, is in the running for a grant for $5,000 through the Pepsi Refresh Project.

Dogs Deserve Better has created a coloring book called, “Happy Dog!” With this coloring book, they hope to educate children about why dogs should not be left on chains. Children, as we know, are often the most vulnerable to attacks by dogs that have been chained and un-socialized. With the $5,000 from the Pepsi Refresh Project, Dogs Deserve Better would distribute 20,000 coloring books to children in areas that are facing economic hardships and often have the highest rates of chained dogs.

To vote for this idea for the month of April, please visit the Dogs Deserve Better idea link on the Pepsi Refresh Project web site: Dogs Deserve Better Coloring Books

You must vote every day until April 30.

And don’t forget to also vote for SNAP, the Spay-Neuter Assistance Program, to receive $50,000 to help spay and neuter 850 community cats in Houston, Texas: SNAP $50,000 Idea

Remember, you have 10 votes per day. Dogs Deserve Better and SNAP are not competing against each other because they are at different grant money levels.

The Ohio House of Representatives Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee will have a hearing for H. B. 79 on Wednesday, April 14, at 9:30 am in the Statehouse in Columbus, Room 18. H. B. 79 would repeal the Ohio law that defines pit bulls as “vicious” simply because of their breed.

If you can attend the hearing, please do, as we need to overturn this breed discrimination law in Ohio. If you cannot attend, please write, call, or fax the committee members and ask them to vote YES on H. B. 79. To find info on the committee members, go to: Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee

To find out more about H. B. 79, please visit: Animal Law Coalition

Please take the time to contact the Committee members and urge them to Vote YES!

I had an email today about the petition drive that is currently going on to collect enough signatures to put a measure on the November 2011 ballot to ban Ohio dog auctions. In order to get this piece of legislation before voters, 120,700 signatures must be collected before December 1, 2010. As of April 1, only about 10,000 signatures have been collected. If you scroll to the bottom of this blog post, you can view a chart that shows how many signatures are required by county and how many have been collected in each county as of April 1.

The next Ohio dog auction is scheduled for May 22 and more than 300 dogs are slated to be auctioned off. We need to ensure that after the November 2011 elections, no more dogs will ever be included in these horrific auctions. In the email from Mary O’Connor-Shaver of Columbus Top Dogs, it was noted that at the March 27 Ohio Dog Auction some of the dogs had “high fevers, infected gums, inflamed hips, and broken legs.” These dogs live in gruesome conditions, arriving at the auctions in poor health, and, if they are not purchased by rescue groups, are then sold off to other terrible situations sometimes into the hands of people who have been charged with animal cruelty.

To learn more about what you can do to help this important legislation reach voters, go to: Ban Ohio Dog Auctions

To download petitions that you can sign or which you can use to collect signatures for your county, go to: Ban Ohio Dog Auctions Signature Petitions

To find out where to go in your county to sign or to attend a town hall meeting that explains why the dog auctions should be banned, please visit: Events

You can also become a member of the Facebook Group, Ohio Voters Against Puppy Mills and Dog Auctions, the next time you log into your Facebook account. Just search for them on Facebook and join.

The chart below (which I received in the email from Columbus Top Dogs) shows how many signatures are needed by December 1, 2010 in order to get the measure on the ballot to ban Ohio dog auctions. The chart also shows how many signatures have been collected as of April 1. Those counties highlighted in red (only Coshocton and Hocking) have reached their signature goals.

Since I live in Plain City, our village encompasses both Madison and Union Counties. I am sad to see that only 47 signatures have been collected in Madison County and only 49 in Union County. I have not signed yet, but I plan to remedy that as soon as possible.

I just wanted to let you know that a rally, aptly named “Woofstock,” will be held this Saturday, April 10, from 10 am to 2 pm to protest the continued use of the gas chamber in the Licking County Animal Shelter. The protest will be held at the shelter located at 544 Dog Leg Road in Heath. If you click on the flyer above, it will take you to a page with just the flyer on it. Click again to enlarge it to get all of the details for Woofstock.

If you plan to attend, you can let the organizers know that you are coming by emailing getridofthegaschamber@gmail.com.

When you email them, you can also let them know that you will need a sign for the rally and they will provide you with one. 

For more information, read the article that was in the April 6th edition of the Newark Advocate: Wheels of County Commissioners Turn Too Slowly.

You can also visit two web sites that have been set up to gain support to get rid of the gas chamber at the LCAS: www.lickingcountypac.com and the Facebook Fan Page, “Get Rid of the Gas Chamber at Licking County Animal Shelter.” When you log into Facebook, just search for the site and become a fan. I just did!