News Hounds by Ryan O’Meara
Well, not much fanfare as the book has been on sale for a few weeks now and I forgot to launch it. Oh sure I happily blogged about someone else’s book launch and spent several hours promoting this and that for next to no reward and all the while my own, in fact my very FIRST, book has been sitting unloved and unmentioned waiting for me to actually tell people they can go out and buy it. So, without further delay, here’s the official launch of News Hounds…Here’s the official publisher’s blurb:
A quirky, humorous collection of nearly two hundred canine stories that captured headlines around the world.
From the Back Cover
Bizarre dog behavior—old news?
Think again!Ryan O’Meara brings together the craziest headline-making news stories from around the world and puts them into one hilarious compendium that will blow the usual anecdotes right out of the dog park! With clever titles like “Canine Calamities,” “Why People Need Pet Insurance,” and “Dogs that Found Fame,” each chapter is custom-made for readers of any age who simply love dogs for the quirky animals that they are.
Featured among its nearly two hundred neither long nor tall tales are:
A pit bull who takes a stroll in the woods near home and returns with a human hand
A basset hound who has a bellyful of problems owing to a pair of women’s tights
An Australian cattle dog who saves an elderly woman from an alligator
A yellow Labrador who claims the cleanest mouth after eating ten bars of soap
A mixed-breed dog who nurses three tiger cubs at a Chinese zoo
A golden retriever who saves his owner with a modified Heimlich maneuverAbout the Author
Ryan O’Meara is the founder and managing director of K9 Media Ltd., Europe’s most prominent pet publishing company. He is the editor in chief of the UK’s first lifestyle dog publication, K9 Magazine, and publisher of Pet Friendly Magazine. K9 Media’s Web sites and magazines reach more than eleven million pet lovers globally. Previously O’Meara was a successful professional dog trainer. He resides in Nottinghamshire county, England, with his two dogs, Mia and Chloe.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Family dog finds unique treasure in garden
There was a flurry of activity in Derby, UK, when a family dog walked into its owners’ house—carrying a human hand. The hand was unearthed from the back garden in Worcester Crescent in Chaddesden and was estimated to have been there for several months. Police found the rest of the presumed male body in the garden and were treating the find as suspicious, but did not suspect murder because there was no sign of trauma.
The man was thought to have had no fixed address, and would spend his time alternating between friends’ houses. That was thought to be the reason why nobody had reported him missing. It may not be a happy ending, but without an inquisitive dog who knows how long the body would have been there, waiting to be found?
Dog comes back from the dead!
Cats are renowned for having nine lives. However, a stray female dog named Dosha appears to be blessed with the same attribute!
A car had accidentally hit Dosha and in order to save the poor animal from the pain of her extensive injuries, the attending Clearlake, CA, police officer decided it would be best to put her out of her misery. The officer shot Dosha in the head and then took her to a local animal control center that promptly placed the dog in a freezer to await disposal.
Several hours later, animal control interim director Denise Johnson was informed of the incident. But when she went to the freezer she couldn’t believe her eyes. “I went to the freezer and found that she was alive and cold,” said Johnson. “She had hypothermia and a gunshot wound, but no broken bones from the car accident.”
Fundraising has begun by several animal humane groups to pay for her care.
Now for my own take on my own book.
It’s fun. It’s absolutely nothing more than a good, solid laugh. That’s why I agreed to write it.
I’ve had a few approaches to write various boring, generic dog books and they sounded so boring and so generic I got to the point where I started to question whether or not publishers had got any imagination left – then The Lyons Press approached me with this project and it absolutely felt like the sort of book I’d want to read. Which is the foundation block of everything I do – yes, it’s selfish and not particularly ‘business-like’ but my view is and always has been, if I find enjoyment in reading something or wanting to learn about a particular dog topic, then that’s what we tend to cover. To date it’s a system that’s worked well and I hope it follows on with News Hounds. Some of the passages genuinely made me LOL. Not a fake Internet LOL but a real-life “Oh my God that was really funny and I can totally see my dog doing something like that” kind of LOL.
The best way I can describe News Hounds is: It’s a book not too dissimilar to a dog, it looks like it’ll be a lot of fun then when you actually get your hands on it, it turns out you were right.
It was primarily published for the American market and we had a lot of fun ‘translating’ certain words and phrases from English English to American English but I’m not going too far out on a limb to suggest that if you can speak English and are not American, y’all still understand this book, boy howdy.
So – if you want to buy it off Amazon, here’s the links:
UNITED KINGDOM >
UNITED STATES >
Highly Recommended: What dog owner wouldn’t want a piece of THIS action? – Get FREE dog food!
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