You know that disclaimer which authors always post at the front of the book? “All characters in this book are totally fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.”. Well, I hereby admit that is not entirely true for my cozy mystery, “Home Fires Burning.”

A whippet named Willow plays an important role in the story, and that dog is totally based on my own whippet, Presto. That’s Presto in the picture, in one of his favorite positions. (You can see he was a Wisconsin Badger fan.)

I say “was” a Badger fan because Presto was 16 2/3 years old — which was like 100 years old, according to our vet — and recently, reluctantly, we realized his time had come.  All of you with pets know what a wrench that is. A vet came to our house and gently put him to sleep.

He was a happy funny guy who was always delighted to greet friends old and new, and had a great life — patrolling our yard, chasing critters, supervising repairmen, basking in the sun and snoozing on the couch, taking neighborhood walks with many good sniffs, and sneaking anything that looked like food (his motto was “Eat first, ask questions later.”)

He leaves an empty space in our home. I’m still listening for the jingle of dogtags and the click of doggie toenails when I come in the door. We were lucky to have him for almost 17 years, but I will miss him for a long time.