The Very First Dog

What is a dog? Where do dogs come from? What was it like before there were dogs? Thirteen-year-old Clay Webber is curious and full of questions. In his search for answers, he is joined by his Grandpa Sam’s search and rescue dog, Gunny. Together they begin to dream of a time fifteen thousand years ago when the future of the human race was in jeopardy. Our ancestors were competing for survival against a host of other predators that were bigger, stronger, and faster than them. They needed help. Clay and Gunny’s dreams begin to show them how early humans got the help they needed. But these are strange dreams, not like any others they have ever had. Are they really dreams? Or are they memories? In the third book of the Sam and Gunny series, go with Gunny and Clay to a strange world in the midst of change and turmoil and see how our race found a partner that would make all the difference — The Very First Dog.

Here’s an Example of What You’ll Read in The Very First Dog

Once upon a time — about fifteen-thousand years ago — there were no dogs.
There were dog-like creatures; jackals, coyotes, foxes, and, of course, wolves. For the previous twenty-thousand years or so, some of these canids had formed temporary alliances with our ancestors, the early Homo sapiens, but we have no evidence that any of these alliances lasted long enough to cause any significant change in the evolution of either the humans or the canids.
Up to the point where our story begins, our species had done pretty well for itself. We had outlasted the Neanderthals and the Denisovans and all of the other sub-species of Homo, and we had learned how to prosper in our world.
Then things began to change. The climate grew warmer, and the great ice sheets began to recede. The weather, the landscape, the flora and fauna all began to change. Some species evolved and grew. Others failed to adapt and died out. It wasn’t at all clear what was going to happen to us.
The struggle for resources, especially food, became more intense every day, and it didn’t seem that our species was very well equipped to compete. We were smart, we had tools and fire, but the other predators were faster, stronger, more powerful, and they had big teeth.
Fifteen-thousand years ago, when a band of humans went out to hunt, they were just as likely to end up being the prey as they were the predator. Their weapons allowed them to kill or snare many kinds of animals but were almost useless against a seven-hundred-pound cave lion or most of the other carnivores.
The human race was at a critical point in its history. To survive, to evolve, to become us, our ancestors needed something more. They needed a partner.

This is a story about how we found our partner.