How Three Mucky Pups Began

When our elder daughter, Róisín was small she loved stories, as children often do. When she settled down to bed every night we read all kinds of stories with varied themes from wicked step-mothers with poisoned apples, ugly sisters, prisoners hidden in towers to pirates, firefighters and explorers. But Róisín's favourite stories of all were the adventures of Percy the Park Keeper and his mischievous animal friends. We read them so often that in the end she was able to recite the stories off by heart and Mam and Dad enjoyed the benefit of a bedtime story too!

In the end, I wondered if we could create our own adventure story.

Róisín, who was a very energetic spirit, also needed daily walks....sometimes two or three times a day! With raw, beautiful landscape rolling out in front of us without a soul for miles, everyone in the family could roam free. By observing both the dogs and Róisín discovering the world and getting up to mischief on these escapades is how our story was born.

It was written in prose form at first and then, I was very lucky to be linked to Cork artist Spark Deeley. I was delighted that she agreed to come on board. A few meetings later, and Spark had managed to capture our world so magnificently. She took the words and created magic with her brush, transforming our world into amazing, colourful imagery.

Following that our life took a few twists and turns in different but worthy directions for a time, and we were thrilled to welcome another little girl, Síofra, on our adventures.

Careless and scattered as I am, when I finally got back to the project I couldn't find the story! So, equipped with the illustrations I began re-writing our adventure story in poetry form. Now that our daughters Róisín and Síofra are experienced in bedtime stories, I had plenty of keen constructive criticism and helpful suggestions!

When the book was finally complete, there was a lot of noise in our house about a book launch. Little Síofra who had never heard of a book launch before started to line up imaginary rockets loaded with copies of 'Three Mucky Pups' and started launching them directly into space. So, not only are they being shipped worldwide, we believe there must be a few of our books also successfully orbiting in space by now thanks to our budding astronaut!

Our loveable doggies saw our project through to the end, and we are very grateful to them for bringing such joy and excitement to our lives. The chaos and shenanigans have all been worthwhile. They have been our guardians and companions for many a year, and they truly are our faithful old friends.

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