Main Street Books

Readers looking for stories about our faithful four-legged friends will find them in Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Dog’s Life, released in April. Included in the volume is T’Mara Goodsell’s heartwarming “The Last Gift,” a story about the day the author met a chocolate Labrador that she came to think of as Brown Lucy. Goodsell encountered the Lab in a stable, where she had gone to see a friend’s new horse. She and the dog bonded immediately, and the gifts Brown Lucy bestowed—the gift of a few minutes, the gift of an invaluable lesson—are things T’Mara will never forget. Goodsell’s stories have been published in anthologies, newspapers, and online, and her poetry won first place in a regional contest in 2010, but though her work has addressed a variety of topics, one of her special gifts is writing about our canine companions. “That is, after all, what a dog’s heart is,” she contends. “A gift.”

Another entry in Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Dog’s Life is Cathi LaMarche’s “Their Trust, Our Privilege,” an inspirational tale of LaMarche’s experiences adopting shelter dogs. When she first met Dexter, a two-year-old Collie mix, the dog looked at her with sad eyes from within a chain-link cage. It took Dexter a little time to adjust after the author took him home. Similarly, Penny, a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, also had initial trust issues. “Moving to our home was a setback for her,” remarks Cathi. “Once again we watched a dog slink from the dark corners of the house for a meal or a trip outside.” LaMarche is passionate about shelter animals, and she balances this affinity with writing her second novel. Her debut novel, While the Daffodils Danced, was published in 2005. “Their trust in us is our reward and privilege,” she adds of Dexter and Penny. “If only they knew how much I believe in the value of an unwanted dog.”