Author’s Note: In real life, Edith and Finn were two young puppies and they inspired me to write children’s books. Edith is our French Bulldog and Finn is a lovely Labrador owned by our friends Lori and Burt Kirby. The puppies quickly became good friends. My first book is called: ‘Edith and Finn Adventures with a Capital A’ and this is an excerpt. The books tells stories about friendship and loyalty, bravery and trust, love and loss.

‘Edith and Finn Adventures with a Capital A’ and ‘Edith and Frankie More Adventures with a Capital A’ are a great read for children between 7 – 12 years of age. They are available through any bookstore or online at Amazon.ca etc by title or author name, Tony Peyton. If I may I recommend the audio version of this story. It’s just more fun heard than read.

Edith couldn’t wait to see Finn. They had so much to talk about. They’d just met a few weeks earlier and had hit it off right away. Edith was older by a few months and thought privately that she was much more mature than Finn. Much more. I mean she loved Finn already, he was her best friend for sure but my goodness he was a fart in a bottle.

Edith remembered she had been brought to Deep Bay on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island by Pat and Tony, two really nice people who had picked her up one day and adopted her. Well, not adopt, it turns out humans don’t adopt dogs. They just come along out of the blue and pick them up. Edith still thought that was pretty weird and she can remember missing her mom but that passed and these two sure seemed to like her, a lot. She could faintly remember her mother telling her how lucky she was,

“Now you be good Edie, I’ve taught you as much as I can these past few weeks but you’ll have to learn what Pat and Tony want. They seem nice.”

She hadn’t seen her mom’s sad eyes when Pat and Tony took her away that day but I think she thought they were good people. She had said to Edith one day, right out of the blue,

“You know what, sweet puppy of mine, what really matters to me is that I know you’re being taken care of by good humans. I’ll be sad to see you go, you have to always know that but if you end up in a good home I’ll be happy for you.”

Edith felt a little scared at first, driving away in a car, looking back at her mom but that soon passed. Pat smelled nice and she made really gentle sounds which helped her relax a bit. Edith didn’t have a clue what Pat was saying but that didn’t seem to matter so much.

Edith loved living in Deep Bay. Pat and Tony lived in a tiny home right on the ocean and they loved looking over at Chrome Island toward the BC coast. Some parts had been easy. Like eating and sleeping and cuddling. They were easy. Edith thought she was a natural at those but she was confused when they didn’t seem to like it when she piddled on the floor and really not like it when she peed on a carpet. That was the first time she had heard them raise their voices,

“Edith, No pee, No pee!”

And somehow Pat capitalized ‘No’ when she said it. What was a dog supposed to do with that?

“Well I can capitalize as well. Yes, pee. Yes, pee. Why do you think I peed in the first place? My mom never told me I couldn’t pee on the floor. She just said ‘never ever ever pee in your own bed’ and she taught me how to squat down and how to keep myself clean. What don’t these humans get about that? It’s going to take me a while to bring them around, that’s for ding dog sure.”

There was so much to learn, Edith thought to herself as she tucked herself into bed.

“I love to sleep,” she said, to no one in particular.

Finn had a long sleep that night. Well, a long sleep by three month old Labrador puppy standards. He’d had to go out to pee a couple of times in the night but so did Burt and for the same reason, so he didn’t feel so badly. Lori and Burt were the first humans Finn had spent much time with and they were definitely together, far as Finn could see and they seemed very nice.

“I mean they give me stuff and lots of food and a nice place to sleep. Sometimes they shout at me but I don’t understand human, so it’s difficult to know what they want. And here’s an idea,” thought Finn, “How about instead of just saying, ‘No Finn, No Finn.’ all the time, why don’t they explain themselves. I mean, I want to learn but they gotta throw a dog a bone here.”

“Hmmm,” thought Finn, a little distracted all of a sudden, “Now that I mention it, where did I bury that bone I had? It’s around here somewhere.”

Finn figured Burt belonged to Lori. He hadn’t been able to figure out how these humans work but he noticed how Lori had lists all the time and Burt seemed to make check marks on the list every time he completed one of the tasks on that list.

He sure was looking forward to seeing Edith again as well. They’d hit it off right away, he thought to himself,

“Boy oh boy, that little Edith sure can run. When she gets half a mind to it she just takes off and runs circles around me. Actually now that I think about it, she runs circles around everybody. She even runs circles around the trailers. She runs circles around everything. If I can ever catch her I think I’m just going to sit on her. That’ll be fun.”

Finn and Edith had agreed on one thing. Well they might have agreed on more if they ever had a chance to talk which wasn’t very often on account of they were both chasing each other all the time. But they had agreed on one thing, it was going to take a while to train their humans.

“Some of the rules are ridiculous.” Edith had said.

“Keep your voice down.” Finn whispered.

“No need to whisper Finn, humans don’t understand dog. We can say whatever we want right in front of them.” Edith was laughing now. “Watch this.”

“No talk. No talk.” she barked right at Pat and Lori, who were busily talking about something or other. Finn howled with laughter.

“No bark. No bark.” Lori and Pat said almost in unison and that just made Finn and Edith laugh even harder.

“Oh Edith, we’re going to have such a fun summer.”

Just then Jet poked his head around the corner.

“Morning you two kids, what are you up to today? Trouble I suppose.”

Jet was a gentle old black Lab. His owner Ross was as tall as a tree and he had some pretty colourful language, that’s for ding dog sure, thought Edith. But Ross seemed nice and she liked Jet. They both did. Jet was slow and blind but he was kind and wise beyond his years.

“Well, not wise beyond his years.” thought Finn to himself, “I mean Jet is really, really old, can’t be many, much beyond his years left.” But Finn thought he was just confusing himself so he decided to stop thinking.

“Sometimes I do my best when I just don’t think.” he muttered quietly.

“I know, right?” Edith had apparently overheard him.

“You know when Tony was angry with me the other day, he actually said, ‘Edith, what were you thinking?!’. Well, hello Tony, I wasn’t thinking anything, you should try it sometime. It’s great.”

“You said that to him?” asked Finn.

“Well no, not exactly. That was my inner voice. He can’t handle the truth yet.”

Finn thought that was very wise and turned away to chase his tail for a bit. That was always fun when you’re not thinking, he reflected, ‘cause when you do think about it you figure out that you can never catch your tail. It’s always turning as fast as you are. And that makes it not so fun.” Finn was confusing himself again.

“Have you met Rosie yet?” asked Jet.

“No, who’s she?” Edith was excited to learn about someone new.

“My owner and Chrissy, his wife, just brought her home. She’s a pretty blond Labradoodle although she’s a little too bouncy and jumpy for my liking. She makes my hips ache just watching her jump up and down. I’ll get her to come over.”

Not two minutes later a giant jumping furball came around the corner of the trailer and before Edith could even say ‘hello’ she was all tangled up in a three dog ball, rolling and tumbling and having a great time with one another. Finn tried to sit on Rosie and Rosie tried to grab Edith and Edith tried to run around both of them.

“I love Deep Bay.” Edith announced to anybody in ear shot.

“Me too.” barked Finn. “We’re going to have so much fun.”

“Well that’s fine you three.” Jet spoke up from the shady spot he’d found under the trailer, “but you had better take care, there’s trouble out there and you’ll be in it before you know it.”