The Tails of Wyatt
the Flying Dachshund

How Wyatt Learned to Fly

People often ask me why I started writing books about dogs that fly Ultralight aircraft and how I came up with the idea in the first place. The truth is, the idea came from a very ordinary evening at home. One night my wife Linda and I were sitting in the living room watching television. Little Dunkin was stretched out comfortably in her lap, and Wyatt was lying in mine.

As dog owners know, there comes a point when a dog gets so comfortable that he becomes part of the furniture. Wyatt and Dunkin had reached that stage.

As I looked down at him, I asked, "Wyatt, are you comfortable?" Now, I wasn't expecting an answer. At least not a verbal one. But Wyatt lifted his head, looked up at me with those famous mismatched eyes, and gave me a look that seemed to say, "Dad, I have a lot to say if you'd just figure out how to listen." That simple moment got me thinking. What would it be like if our dogs could talk to us? What if they could understand everything we said? And what if we could understand everything they were trying to tell us?

As every dog owner knows, our dogs already communicate with us. Sometimes it's through a bark, a tail wag, a tilted head, or a look that says more than words ever could. The question became: What would happen if they could actually hold a conversation? So I started experimenting with different story ideas. My first attempt was Wyatt the Time Traveler. It sounded interesting. Unfortunately, Wyatt seemed about as interested in time travel as he would be in filing tax returns. It just didn't feel right.

Next, I tried making Wyatt an astronaut. That idea lasted about five minutes. The more I wrote, the more it felt like I was trying to force Wyatt into someone else's story. I kept thinking about Laika the first dog in space. The character simply wasn't coming to life.

Then I started thinking about my own life. I grew up flying radio-controlled model airplanes with my Dad. Some of my favorite memories are standing beside him at the flying field, watching our airplanes flying overhead. I too learned to fly radio-controlled model airplanes and years later I learned to fly full-scale aircraft, and at one point I owned a Cobra Ultralight.

To this day, flying that Cobra remains one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done. And then the idea hit me. With Wyatt still lying in my lap, I looked down at him and asked, "Wyatt, would you like to learn to fly an Ultralight airplane?" Once again he lifted his head and looked at me. This time with that blue eye fixed directly on me. Now, I realize some people might say he was simply wondering whether I had a snack. But I chose to interpret that look as, "Yes, Dad. I would absolutely love to learn to fly."

And just like that, everything clicked into place. For the first time, the story felt right. I sat down and wrote the very first chapter. The more I wrote, the more Wyatt seemed to develop a personality of his own. Soon he wasn't just a Dog learning to fly. He was telling the story in his own voice, introducing new friends, finding adventures, and occasionally getting into trouble. As the story grew, so did the cast of characters. Before long, Jake, Cooper, Dunkin, Daisy Sue, Betty Sue, Patty Sue, and many others had joined the adventure.

Eventually, I changed the title from Wyatt the Flying Dachshund to The Tails of Wyatt the Flying Dachshund, which better reflected the collection of adventures that Wyatt and his friends would experience. And that's how the series got its start. Not from a publishing plan. Not from a marketing strategy. And certainly not from any grand vision of writing multiple books. It started with a Dog lying in my lap, looking up at me as if he had something important to say.

The rest, as Wyatt likes to tell people, was simply a matter of getting the story off the ground. And that sounds exactly like something Wyatt would claim after the fact—that becoming a pilot was his idea all along.