Gone – Cleo’s Misadventure
Author Rebecca J. Johnson
Cleo, a Basset Hound, knows what it is like to be lost and alone. She has finally found a loving home and her very own “Clean Ears” bowl. But one day she becomes so engrossed in following a deer trail on the family walk, that she is unable to find her way back to her loving family.
As she tries to return home, she is picked up by a well-meaning stranger who inadvertently takes her even farther from her home. Now Cleo must find her way back to the home she loves, through harsh and unforgiving terrain.
Along the way, Cleo will once again encounter the obstacles and pitfalls of her former life on the road, and in the process, cherish all the more the family and home that she left behind.
Inspired by the actual experiences of author Rebecca Johnson and the sudden loss of her beloved rescued Basset Hound, Cleo, “Gone: Cleo’s Misadventure” is a fictional, sometimes tearful, and often humorous recounting of Cleo’s days on the road, told from Cleo’s point of view.
Gone: Cleo’s Misadventure is the first book in the Cleo’s Misadventure series.
Audience for Gone: Cleo’s Misadventure
Animal lovers from 8 to 95 years old
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Reviews
More dogs should write books. By Sandra L. York – Published on Amazon.com – Five stars
What a wonderful story told from the viewpoint of a dog, and what a special dog she is. Cleo tells of her “misadventures” of trying to return home after wondering too far while chasing a fragrant deer. Poor Cleo is a pampered pup forced to battle the elements in search of her home. Rebecca Johnson knows dogs and does a great job writing a dog’s story. The story is very detailed and as reader, you find yourself rooting for the brave, determined pup to return to her family and her favorite bowl. The book is also wonderfully illustrated so you feel even more like you know Cleo and experience her misadventures with her.
Biography
Rebecca Johnson has been in love with animals for as long as she can remember. As a child she had ponies and horses, frogs, foxes, a raccoon, a ground hog and even an opossum for a few days. Once she rode a circus elephant and a Lipizzan horse. Of course, she had dogs. By her 16th year, Rebecca had helped her father, Edward Love Johnson, an avid naturalist and outdoorsman, establish and operate the Old White Rodeo in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, worked as a horse trainer and riding instructor, and won numerous barrel races on her Quarter Horse mare, Bobby Mu. “Bobby and I had a unique relationship,” Rebecca says. “I never told her what to do. All I did was ask. We understood each other perfectly.” While holding down her day job teaching journalism at Marshall University, she has raised Zebra and Society finches, Love Birds and Parakeets, Collies, and horses including National Show Horses and Half Arabians. She also discovered one of her passions — rescuing abandoned dogs. “For years it seemed as if our farm was on the map as a drop-off point for unwanted dogs,” says Rebecca. “We couldn’t resist loving them, and once they were named, they became part of our family.” Rebecca and her husband, JP, laughingly refer to their place as “The Puppy Torture Farm.” Arriving dogs would initially be kept in isolation until free of parasites, vaccinated and given a clean bill of health by their vet. Naturally, during this time, the new dogs wanted to be a part of the family and protested vigorously at the torture of being kept apart from the others. Over the years Rebecca and JP have rescued more than a hundred dogs, although the number that they are able to keep at one time remains somewhat constant. “Twelve is just about our limit,” she says. “That many dogs, plus our horses keeps us both pretty busy.” Rebecca, who had decided by the time she was in the second grade that she wanted to be a writer, has published a number of magazine articles in National Show Horse, Horse and Rider, and American Rifleman. Finally, she has combined her writing goal with her love of animals in her first published novel, “Gone: Cleo’s Misadventures.”
Rebecca’s Website