Susan Conant - Ruffly Speaking

THE CRITICS LOVE
SUSAN CONANTS
DOG LOVERS MYSTERIES!

CONANT MIGHT BE THE DOG LOVERS ANSWER TO LILIAN JACKSON BRAUNS THE CAT WHO SERIES.

Rocky Mountain News

TOSS MS. CONANT A BISCUIT. IF THERES A CLASS CALLED DOG MYSTERIES, SHES GOT A BEST OF BREED.

Rendezvous

COME. SIT. STAY.

Kirkus Reviews

PUREBRED ENTERTAINMENT. WITH PAPERS.

Clarion-Ledger, Jackson

IF YOUVE SUSPECTED MYSTERIES ARE GOING TO THE DOGS, SUSAN CONANTS LATEST COULD WELL CONFIRM THAT THEORY.

Greenwich Time/Stamford Advocate

THE PERFECT GIFT FOR THE DOG-LOVER WITH EVERYTHING.

The Globe and Mail, Toronto

PAWS FOR A MOMENT, IF YOU LIKE DOGS.

Cox News Service

RUFFLY SPEAKING

A REAL TAIL-WAGGER.

The Washington Post

YOUD BETTER GO FETCH THIS.

Kirkus Reviews

A FINE READ, A STORY THAT IS AS FASCINATING FOR ITS DOG LORE AS FOR ITS MYSTERY PLOT.

Romantic Times

Ms. Conant has the ability to make her characters (both canine and human) come alive.

Mystery News

BLOODLINES

Conants dog-centered mystery is LIVELY, FUNNY, AND ABSOLUTE PREMIUM.

Kirkus Reviews

IF YOURE A DOG PERSON THIS BOOK IS DEFINITELY FOR YOU.

Rendezvous

Susan Conant gives new meaning to the phrase sniffing out clues.

Dog Fancy magazine

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR LOVERS OF DOGS, PEOPLE, AND ALL-AROUND GOOD STORYTELLING!

Mystery News

Engrossing unique!

Mystery Forum

GONE TO THE DOGS

AN ABSOLUTELY FIRST-RATE MYSTERY and a fascinating look at the world of dogs I loved it.

Diane Mott Davidson, author of
The Cereal Murders and The Last Suppers

Conants dogs are real, true, and recognizable. BOTH DOG AND MYSTERY LOVERS KNOW A CHAMPION WHEN THEY SEE ONE. GONE TO THE DOGS DEFINITELY WINS BEST OF BREED.

Carolyn G. Hart, award-winning author of
Dead Mans Island

Conant infuses her writing with a healthy dose of humor about Hollys Fido-loving friends and other Cambridge clichs; the target of her considerable wit clearly emerges as human nature.

Publishers Weekly

AN ENJOYABLE READ FOR ANIMAL LOVERS OF ALL KINDS.

Mystery Lovers Bookshop News

Holly Winter is a friendly, funny, salty, boundlessly enthusiastic guide to the noble and nefarious in the world of dogs. And the dogs are real enough to pat!

P. M. Carlson, author of Bad Blood

A LSO BY S USAN C ONANT

*Bloodlines
*Gone to the Dogs
Paws Before Dying
A Bite of Death
Dead and Doggone
A New Leash on Death
*Black Ribbon
*Stud Rites
*Animal Appetite
*The Barker Street Regulars
*Evil Breeding
*Creature Discomforts

*Available from Bantam Books

All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

This edition contains the complete text
of the original hardcover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

RUFFLY SPEAKING

A Bantam Book / published in
association with Doubleday

PUBLISHING HISTORY
Doubleday hardcover edition / April 1994
Bantam paperback edition / November 1994

All rights reserved.
Copyright 1994 by Susan Conant.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 9311380.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.

eISBN: 978-0-307-78545-9

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words bantam Books and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Random House, Inc., New York, New York.

v3.1

To Wendy Willhauck
in memory of
her beloved companion, the miracle dog,

C H . F ROSTFIELD S WEET H ONCHO

(19761989)

The wonderful people and spectacular dogs of NEADS, the New England Assistance Dog Service, Princeton, Massachusetts, helped me in researching the background of this book. Thanks, too, to Joel Woolfson, D.V.M., for clear answers to my veterinary questions and superb care of my dogs.

Many thanks to my fellow members of the New England and the Charles River dog training clubs, especially to those masters of praise and correction, Geoff Stern and Roseanne Mandel. I am also grateful to Bernard, mascot of Alaskan Malamute Rescue of South Texas, who bounded right into this book, and to Susan Cloer, who cheerfully leaped in with her dog. Thanks, too, to my perfect editor, Kate Miciak. Huzzah!

Frostfield Arctic Natasha, C.D., T.T., C.G.C., V.C.C., my first Alaskan malamute, prima inter pares, soul mate and godsend, died on March 31, 1993. Her grieving young nephew, Frostfield Firestars Kobuk, who hitched himself to my sorrow, pulled as only a malamute can. I am grateful for his strength and graced by his life. He loved her, too.

The world of goodness is filled with fleas.

dictum of Chogyam Trungpa,
calledRinpoche, meaning precious one

If I come right out and ask whether youve been grabbed by evil-eyed aliens, whisked aboard their spacecraft, and subjected to grueling medical tests, youre going to say no, arent you? Even if you remember every terrifying detail of the whole nasty business, youre probably too embarrassed to say so because youre afraid that people will think youre crazy. Besides, UFO experts agree that practically all abductees are left with only fragmentary memories of the horrid little gray-skinned medics who prodded and poked them and stabbed them with needles. No wonder people forget. Earthling doctors are bad enough; a gynecologist from outer space doesnt bear remembering.

It cant be easy to do research on UFO abductions, can it? The subjects who remember wont tell, and the ones who might spill all the fascinating details about the design of extraterrestrial hypodermics and speculums and stuff cant because theyve forgotten. So instead of asking about the experience per se, the experts pose trick questions about epiphenomenabuzzing and whirring sounds that orchestrate the dance of weird lights, the sense that youve lost time and dont know where its gone. Ah, but that happens to everyone, doesnt it? Certainly. But is it common to wake up paralyzed and sense a living presence lurking around in the room, looming over you, breathing close by your bed, watching you? Does everyone have the feeling of flying through the air without knowing how or why? Do we all feel as if weve left our bodies? And on returning, do we discover puzzling marks and scars on our torsos and limbs? Key indicator experiences, theyre called, signs that maybe even unbeknownst to you, youve been the victim of an alien abduction.