Guest Blog Post from Alexis Glynn Latner!

Today, I’m hosting Alexis Glynn Latner, one of the authors in the Pets in Space® 4 anthology. Check out her post (and be sure to check out Pets in Space® 4!).

Let’s hear it for Heroes ~ Alexis Glynn Latner

My Mom and Dad were both in military service when they were younger. (So were two uncles on my Mom’s side, and an aunt on my Dad’s side.) They actually met when they were both in the Army. They left the service when they got married. It was for reasons unrelated to family on active duty that I grew up in Columbus, Georgia, the city next to Fort Benning, the largest infantry training center in the world then. Growing up there, it was the most normal thing in the world to see soldiers in fatigues running errands around town. To hear the boom-boom-boom of artillery practice. And spend the Fourth of July at Benning, with kids lining up for an exciting ride on the zip line of a parachute jump practice tower.

Growing up in Columbus, I didn’t know about any active or retired service members who had PTSD—though they were probably there then, and they must be there now. I hope they have service dogs to help them. I know what a difference those dogs can make. A dear friend of mine with PTSD from a catastrophic car accident has a service dog. Rinnie is a 90-pound German Shepherd who came to my friend as a sick stray on the front steps. Taken to the vet and cured of heartworms, Rinnie turned out to be an undisguised blessing. Someone with PTSD can be amazingly more at ease with a good dog at their side. My friend once told me about meeting a sunken-eyed, disoriented fellow in the grocery story. He was a PTSD-suffering veteran who couldn’t sleep at night. She advised him to go get a good dog. Because that would let him sleep.

A good dog can make even more of a life-changing difference if the dog is specifically trained. Rinnie got training and is the most well-behaved, helpful, and wonderful service dog I can imagine. (And she’s really good at tucking her ninety pounds out of the way in my small condo when they visit. How does she do that? I’ve known six-pound cats with the opposite trait, always managing to be IN the humans’ way even in a big house!) The charity that Pets in Space is proud to support, Hero Dogs, is all about service dog training. “Hero Dogs, Inc. improves quality of life for our nation’s heroes by raising, training, and placing service dogs and other highly skilled canines, free of charge with lifetime support of the partnerships.” (That’s from their Website, hero-dogs.org.) They provide veterans, first responders, and their family members with service dogs, home companion dogs, and therapy dogs. Hurrah for Hero Dogs, Inc.!

In Winter’s Prince, my unicorn turns out to be a rescue animal. With a free-wheeling interstellar fair ranging across the park where the unicorn lives, on a forested mountain inside a huge space station, Prince, the unicorn, is trained to find lost fair-goers and lead them to safety.

Sara twined her fingers in the unicorn’s silky mane. He was so surefooted that she stopped watching her feet and just trusted him to avoid rocks and roots. Sara knew horses. Her parents had a horse farm in a backwater province on the planet Goya. She’d come to Wendis to get away from the dull province, but she knew and loved horses. With this slender, silver unicorn lightly walking beside her like a horse made of starlight, she felt safe.

Grab your copy of Pets in Space® 4 today! For a limited time, Pets in Space® 4 brings together today’s leading Science Fiction Romance authors to help Hero-Dogs.org, a non-profit charity that helps our service veterans and first responders. https://petsinspaceantho.com

Alexis Glynn Latner writes tales of romantic adventure that touch readers’ hearts and their minds as well. https://www.alexisglynnlatner.com