Compton Bassett dog’s life is in print
8:00am Friday 25th January 2013 in Latest News By Anne Moore
Adrian Elmer with Jack the Labrador and his new book
A dog owner’s joke Facebook account written from the perspective of his pet proved so popular that he has published a book.
Adrian Elmer began writing about the scrapes his Labrador Jack gets into when his son Sky, 16, encouraged him to set up a Facebook account.
At the time, Mr Elmer, 53, a graphic designer from Compton Bassett, was unconvinced by the social networking site. He believed most people would be friends with anyone and to prove a point, he created one in his dog’s name instead.
Mr Elmer, who also has two daughters Linda and Cherry, who are in their 20s, said: “As soon as I created the character you have to fill in the stories, so I began writing my take on his view of our world and I got followers from all over the world.
“The parish magazine started serialising it, so that’s when I had to learn how to publish it. It’s not going to rival J K Rowling but we’re doing all right.
“My son thinks it’s funny, even all his mates follow Jack on Facebook now. He came up this weekend with his mates so there’s a story about that.”
Mr Elmer, who has had Jack for around eight years, said his stories were based around Compton Bassett and each of them carried a grain of truth.
In the book Jack takes part in various village events including the summer fete and Christmas carols at the White Horse.
He also gets into various scrapes, from stealing a business client’s toupee to racing into a pond after the noise of a neighbour’s Subaru startled him.
Jack, who was born at Lord Bath’s Longleat estate, was trained to be a gun dog but the loud noises unsettled him and he was retired.
Mr Elmer is hoping to launch the book at Longleat and has provided them with a copy to see if they can help with publicity.
His first book, a Major’s Diary, is a weekly diary of a post-war major written in a comic style and before that he had work included in a collection sold at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany.
Mr Elmer said it was at this point he became hooked on writing. He said: “It was surreal to see people’s reaction to my work.”
Jack Labrador, The Owner – My Part In His Breakfast is available to buy on Amazon or at www.
merlin-publishing.co.uk.
