When Jeff Schettler began writing a memoir about his bloodhound, and the cases they had worked on together as a K9 team, Ronin had already been diagnosed with the cancer that would end his life. Years later, there was such strong faith in the ability of Red Dog Rising to resonate with readers that plans were underway for a national book tour—a major undertaking in any event, but for a book published by a small independent press even moreso. And then Schettler himself was diagnosed with what his publicist, Julie Schoerke, described to us as “very aggressive” cancer—scuttling the entire tour except for one reading in Atlanta at the end of November, as traveling to other cities is simply incompatible with 30 hours of chemotherapy a week.
In the YouTube era, however, Schettler can still talk to readers about his story, and about the Georgia K9 National Training Center, the service dog training center he’s founded which will receive all the proceeds from the sales of Red Dog Rising.