by Dan Walsh
Dan Walsh
About The Author
Dan Walsh was born in Philadelphia in 1957. His family moved down to Daytona Beach, Florida in 1965, when his dad began to work with GE on the Apollo space program. That’s where Dan grew up.
He married, Cindi, the love of his life in 1976. They have two grown children and three grandchildren. Dan served as a pastor for 25 years, then began writing fiction full-time in 2010. His bestselling novels have won many awards, including 3 ACFW Carol Awards (Book-of-the-Year) and 3 Selah Awards. Three of Dan’s novels were finalists for RT Reviews Inspirational Book of the Year.
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http://danwalshbooks.com
Acknowledgments
Writing a novel is mostly a solitary effort.
A picture comes to mind of an author hammering away on a laptop all by themselves as days, weeks and months go by. It’s an accurate picture for the most part. But for some very good reasons, every writer depends on the help of others.
There’s an old saying, “Write what you know.” In other words, situate your stories in locations and areas of life in which you have some expertise. That might work for a novel or two, maybe even three. But at some point, if an author is being honest, they will come to the end of things they know. What happens then?
What most do, including this author, is a lot of research. You spend quality time learning from people who really do know what they’re talking about. You realize that the input they provide is invaluable and adds a much-needed measure of credibility and realism to your story. They provide details which would be impossible to obtain without their help.
On this page, I get to thank the people who’ve helped me make Rescuing Finley a much better book. If you happen to be an expert in any of the areas I touch on in the book and you find any mistakes—blame me, not them. I’m sure I just got something wrong or misunderstood something they said.
With this disclaimer out of the way, let me begin by thanking the one person who has helped me the most. Without her help, this book could not have been written (this is no exaggeration). It’s not uncommon for authors to thank loved ones and spouses for all their support while writing the book. My wife, Cindi, contributed so much more than mere support.
As I mentioned in my Author’s Note, she is a certified dog trainer and graduated from Animal Behavior College with a 4.0 GPA. She’s trained hundreds of dogs over the past few years through her job as the Animal Behavior Manager at our local Humane Society. To put it simply, she is a wizard with dogs and really understands how they think. Her input on the chapters with Finley was priceless. She also provided significant editorial input regarding the characters themselves and the flow of the story.
I also want to thank the management, staff and volunteers of Halifax Humane Society (HHS), located in the Daytona Beach area where we live. The shelter you read about in the book is not a replica of HHS, but I’ve learned much from the folks over there. They do an amazing job every day taking in, caring for and finding homes for these precious animals. I especially want to thank Miguel Abi-hassan, the CEO of HHS, for his vision in seeing the necessity of dog training and adding an animal behaviorist to his staff. He created Cindi’s position and gives her his strong support. He realizes the critical role training plays in helping owners experience a lasting and fulfilling relationship with their pets.
My wish is that every animal shelter would follow his example. Most pet-owners wind up bringing their dogs to shelters because of problems that could easily be fixed if they’d only spend some time with a certified trainer.
I would also like to thank Marge Blomquist and Allen Weigel, who pioneered the Prison Pups and Pals program at the Tomoka Correctional Institute, the state prison nearest our home in Florida. And I want to thank Officer Gail Irwin, who oversees the program from inside the prison. This program takes shelter dogs from our Humane Society and teaches prison inmates how to train the dogs to serve others, including military veterans. The program shown in Rescuing Finley bears some similarities to this program, but it’s not an exact match. I actually researched dozens of similar programs taking place in prisons throughout the US and borrowed things from several different programs.
Let me encourage you to check them out. You will find it time well spent. But be forewarned, you might want to have a tissue handy. I cried several times as I watched a number of videos that show the amazing difference these dogs have made in the lives of the inmates and the military veterans they served. You can find programs very similar to the fictitious one seen in the book by Googling: “Prison programs training shelter dogs for vets.”
Do everything you can to support them. These dogs and the people training them really are saving lives, both the dogs’ lives and the lives of our veterans, especially those struggling with PTSD.
I’d also like to thank my team of proofreaders, for helping to catch all the things I and my editor missed: Deborah Keith, Donna Tinsley, Patricia Keough-Wilson and Jann Brown. Finally, I want to thank Kendy Wooden for giving me the idea for the series sub-title for these books: “A Forever Home Novel.” This book is now officially: “Rescuing Finley – A Forever Home Novel – Book 1. There will be at least two more, Finding Riley and Saving Parker.
Table of Contents
Part I: Two Years Ago
1
2
3
4
5
6
Part II: The Present
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
Part III: Two Months Later
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
Want to Read More?
Sneak Peek of Finding Riley
Want to read more of Dan’s novels?
Want to Help Dan?
Author’s Note about Rescuing Finley
About The Author
Acknowledgments