Cheating on Morris in the Sunshine State
I went to Florida to sign books. I returned with a suntan, a repetitive strain injury, and the scent of another dog on my collar.
Last weekend, my writing partner, Scott Dooley, and I executed a daring escape from the cryogenically frozen tundra of New York, a place where the wind currently hurts your face on an emotional level, and fled south to Naples, Florida.
For the uninitiated, Naples is a unique ecosystem. It is a place where the median age hovers somewhere around the temperature (in Fahrenheit), and the primary industry appears to be aggressive relaxation. It is a land of terrifyingly blue skies, perfectly manicured lawns, and people in nice cars driving very, very slowly to the grocery store to buy high-fibre bran.
We were not there for the bran, however. We were there to promote our new book, You’re Not a Real Dog Owner Until...
The current publishing landscape is a bit of a nightmare for people who like making handmade things. Trying to sell a book in the age of algorithmic dominance is like trying to scream underwater (or trying to explain the concept of “empathy” to an AI-Art booster). Unless you feed the insatiable Amazon beast with a steady diet of five-star reviews, you might as well have printed your book in invisible ink on the back of a damp serviette. You simply disappear.
So, Scott and I rely on the old-fashioned, analogue method. We get on planes, we go to actual bricks-and-mortar bookstores, and we beg strangers to love us.
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Our consummate hosts for the weekend, Mimi and Richard, generously deposited us at a fantastic new independent shop called Books on Third, which I’d stumbled upon on my last trip here at Thanksgiving. I drew the co-owner’s dog into a copy of the book and left it behind the counter for when they got back, like the world’s cutest time bomb. When they finally saw it, their Events Team reached out and invited us to sign books. Huzzah!
Our legendary agent, Nicole (a woman who could probably organise a peace treaty between cats and laser pointers), had arranged the whole thing with the store. They’d set up a table laden with cupcakes from a local bakery. Crucially, there were two categories of cupcakes: some were for humans, and some were dense, peanut-butter-flavoured ones for dogs. The distinction was clearly labelled, though I saw at least one Golden Retriever who didn’t care about literacy or federal labelling laws inhale a non-chocolate one, wrapper and all. I watched him do it with a mix of horror and jealousy. He looked so happy, completely oblivious to the intestinal reckoning that awaited him.
Scott and I have a very specific division of labour for these events, based largely on our respective social aptitudes. Scott has the gift of the gab. He is the guy you want at a dinner party. He can talk to anyone about anything (football, politics, the weather, the nuanced decline of Western civilisation) and make them feel like the most interesting person in the room.
I, on the other hand, am socially amphibious. I function best when submerged in ink. If I have to make eye contact for too long, I start to malfunction. So, the system works like this: Scott woos the crowd. He charms them. He gets their names and asks about their lives. Then, once they are disarmed, he slides the book over to me. I sit hunched over like a medieval scribe, sketching their dogs into the flyleaves until my hand resembles a dried crab claw.
And the dogs descended. Oh, they descended...
From the minute our bums hit the chair, we had a queue out the door. It turns out that people really, really like it when you draw their pets. It is a strange magic trick. You take a blank page, you look at their chaotic, drooling animal, and a few minutes later, there is a drawing. It feels human. It is the exact opposite of typing a prompt into an AI generator and getting a soulless image of a dog-shaped creature with seven legs.
Naples, I discovered, takes its canine pageantry very seriously. Outside the bookstore, there was a parade celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. I am not entirely sure why they were celebrating it so early (or why dogs were involved), but I have learned not to question Florida. You just let it happen to you.
The theme was “Patriotism,” which meant I saw things I cannot unsee. There was a Pomeranian in a Jeep covered in flags, looking confusingly militaristic. There were puppies in wagons dressed as colonial candlemakers.
But the highlight (the image that will be burned into my retinas until the day I die) was a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel in a pram. This dog wasn’t just a participant; he was a piece of performance art. He was wearing a tricorn hat. His cart bore a hand-painted sign that read “Paw Revere.” Below that, in careful lettering, it said: “One if by land, two if by sea.”
The dog looked at me with deep, soulful eyes that seemed to say, “I don’t know who Paul Revere is, but I know I am hot and I would like a treat.” It was a level of pageantry that would make a drag queen say, “Okay, settle down.”
The event was a resounding success. We sold out of books! We laughed. We met incredible readers who subscribe to this newsletter (hello to you!). We ate amazing food, toasted our day, we hit golf balls into a clear blue sky, which felt like a hallucination after months of New York grey. It was perfect.
But, as with all affairs, there is a price to be paid.
The guilt set in the moment our plane touched down in New York. The transition was violent. I went from hitting golf balls under a benevolent sun to shivering on the curb at JFK, my bones rattling like a bag of dice. I wasn’t just cold; I was spiritually compromised.
When I walked into my apartment and was greeted by Morris, my French Bulldog, there was a vibe. Usually, Morris greets me with the chaotic energy of a petrol-powered goblin. He spins. He snorts. He makes a sound like a pig trying to start a lawnmower and starts humping the air.
Today, he didn’t wag. He stood at the end of the studio, rigid. He sniffed the air. Then he walked up to me, squinted, and sniffed my jeans (specifically the knee area, where a Doodle named Barnaby had rested his chin for five minutes).
He looked up at me with the heartbroken expression of a spouse who has just found lipstick on a collar. The betrayal was absolute. “You’ve been with them, haven’t you?” his eyes said. “I smell the peanut butter. I smell the Cavoodles. I smell the high-end conditioner of a Naples show dog. You didn’t just pet them, Jason. You drew them.”
I tried to explain. “It was for work, Morris! It puts kibble on the table! You’re still the goodest boy ever!”
He turned his back on me and sighed (a long, flatulent exhalation of pure judgment) and walked to his bed. He stared at the wall for an hour.
It is one of the great privileges of my life to be an author and a cartoonist. I love meeting you guys. I love drawing your dogs. I love escaping the tundra to see the sun. But I am currently in the doghouse, literally and metaphorically.
If you bought the book and want to save my marriage with Morris, please leave a review on Amazon. It helps us convince bookstores that we are worth the airfare, and it buys me enough high-value biscuits to bribe my way back into my own dog’s heart. He is currently negotiating for a new squeaky toy and a public apology. I think he’s going to get it.
‘til next time
Your pal,
PS. If you’d like a drawing of your own dog in the book, or the dog of a friend, click here.
Not enough was said about those cupcakes.
Did you try the pb pup cakes? They look pretty good!