F. Scott Fitzgerald

Over the past ten years, we’ve rescued three Schnoodles and given them all literary names. Boo Radley (To Kill a Mockingbird) was found behind the door of an empty duplex, abandoned by his former family when they moved out. Ollie (named for my favorite poet, Mary Oliver) was a young stray found on the streets of north Georgia. Fitz (short for F. Scott Fitzgerald) came to us following a badly broken leg (the x-ray looked like a candy cane snapped off at 12:00 of the hook) that the vets barely managed to save. He also had extensive road rash, leading us to believe that he may have been thrown from a moving car. He’s had a large cyst removed from his neck and had most of his rotting teeth extracted since he came to us, including his canines because of CUPS Disease. He also has cataracts, but he can still miraculously spot a lizard from a mile away. Fitz is the happiest little dog I’ve known in all my years.

Fitz is my soul dog – he sleeps right next to me, he has to be in my lap, and he invades my space right down to the air I breathe (he’s usually checking to see what I’ve most recently eaten when he gets in my face, being the little foodie he is). He likes to do what I do, so if I get up from writing to refill my coffee, he assumes the writer position in my chair in front of my computer. He heard it was NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), so here he is – working on his first novel. He’s going for those 50,000 words this month.

And oh, how I wish I knew his story.

F. Scott Fitzgerald,

our Schnoodle “Fitz” for short, works

on his current book