I am just a few chapters in to the new Orla Perry adventure

And I am hooked

Dave T. Dog is once again stealing the show

He is a little dog with a huge heart

And is now part cat thanks to his previous adventure!

You really have to read the books to understand how awesome Orla’s canine sidekick is!

Before that though I have an exclusive guest post for you

From author and owner of the real life Dave T. Dog

Chris Haslam

It is entitled The Curious Case of the Dog in the Cherry Tree

Are you sitting comfortably?

Then begin …

The Curious Case of the Dog in the Cherry Tree

Dave T. Dog is an invention. At least, he was back in 2018 when I was writing Orla and the Serpent’s Curse. Even when I didn’t know Orla’s name, I knew she would have a close protection specialist/familiar/slightly overweight dog (tick whichever applies) as her companion and confidant. I also knew he would be called Dave T. Dog (go on: ask me what the “T” stands for), and that he would be a Jack Russell.

I’ve always owned dogs, and they’ve always been Jack Russells. There was Seeker and Whisper and Qu’est-Ce Que C’est (tbh, I wasn’t sure he was a Jack Russell) and Jake: a particularly dim dog who spent his entire life escaping near-death experiences (chasing rabbits over cliffs, being washed over a waterfall, getting caught in traps and miraculously surviving being run over – twice). Somehow, he lived to fourteen years of age.

I’d learned over all those years that the Jack Russell was tough, loyal, clever (with the exception of Jake) and funny. Living with a JRT is like having a full-time clown on the staff.

So, yes, Oprah or Orphelia or Orla – or whatever her name was going to be – would have a Jack Russell called Dave T. Dog (it’s “The” since you ask). He would be an ex-special forces operative with an intense dislike of cats who was on a mission to keep his mistress safe.

So it was a bit awkward when, close to the denouement of Orla and the Serpent’s Curse, after a Jake-like brush with death on that crazy last night in Cornwall as the farm was on fire and black magic was falling like rain, Dave T. Dog was revived with a magic potion conjured exclusively for cats. Consequently, the cat-hating dog began climbing trees, chasing mice and purring like a moggy.

But he wasn’t real. He was a short-legged canine figment of my imagination. No real Jack Russell, like the one I rescued in May 2020 – one month after Orla and the Serpent’s Curse was published – would act like that.

I named him Dave T. Dog and he seemed totally normal. He liked swimming, riding in the basket of my bike, barking at postmen, rolling in fox poo and sitting on the front of my kayak, growling at swans.

Then one day in August I found him lying in the sunshine. On the roof of my shed. A month later, in Scotland, he leapt with leopard-like grace onto a drystone wall and walked along it for several hundred metres. And in November, he climbed his first tree. It was astonishing – not least for the squirrel he was pursuing – but while he was good at going up, he hadn’t worked out how to get down. He’d picked a cherry tree and was stuck, maybe eight metres up where the branches are not strong enough to bear 8.5 kg of dog. I looked up. He looked down at me: a little anxious but mostly incredibly pleased with himself. I thought about calling the fire brigade, but wasn’t sure how seriously they’d take a report of a dog stuck up a tree. So I hauled myself up, attached his extending lead to his harness and lowered him down like a Spec Ops trooper descending from a helicopter.

Since then, he’s only needed rescuing once more: from a Scots pine in Three Cliff Bay in Wales. He’s getting better and better. Squirrels across the land are learning that there’s no hiding place. I’m learning to be very, very careful combining witchcraft with domestic animals. I’m not saying it’s magic, but it’s definitely a bit weird.

And now I love Dave even more!

I am off to finish reading the wonderful Orla and the Magpie’s Kiss

Please do watch out here and on Instagram for my review

And while you are waiting for mine

Check out the reviews and guest posts which make up the rest of the tour