Katz harvests fresh stories about dogs

Jon Katz lives on a farm in rural New York state, and he can quickly rattle off the animal inventory at his place: two steers, one cow, 26 sheep, four donkeys, a rooster, some chickens, two goats (which are on order) and "between three and five dogs."

This is not to say that he is a traditional farmer, because even with all of his animals, barns and acres of meadows, Katz produces a nontraditional crop.

"I grow stories," he says.

Katz, 59, is best known as the author of the best-seller "A Dog Year." He will appear on Thursday in Raleigh to promote his latest book, "Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm."

A former newspaper reporter, Katz was living outside New York City and writing about technology when a particularly rambunctious border collie came into his life. To corral the dog's craziness into something productive, Katz took it to a farm in Pennsylvania and fell in love with the rituals of rural life.

The experience morphed into "A Dog Year." He moved to his own farm in 2003, thinking the new location would provide him with material. He got to work refurbishing the home and barns and adding a farm-animal collection to his canine family.

And, despite the misgivings of his wife, editor and agent, he was right. "Dog Days" features his dogs Izzy, Rose, Pearl and Clem, but also a steer named Elvis and a baby donkey named Jesus (pronounced hey-zeus).

When you're a city guy who moves to a farm and names his donkeys, everyday experiences become instant book fodder. Even though many more animals come into the farm than ever head to market, Katz says that growing this nontraditional crop is profitable.

"This farm makes money. I couldn't live here if it didn't," he says during a phone interview from his home. "The dogs definitely work for a living. They have to generate a lot of books."

And a lot of dog books are being generated. Katz already has written six books about dogs and has a contract to write three more.

He's found a book-buying audience -- dog lovers -- whose appetite for stories seems to have no end. More than 1 million copies of John Grogan's "Marley & Me" are in print. Stacks of dog books seem to be released every day.

"They tend in publishing to copy successes rather than make their own," Katz says. "As long as they think it's hot, they'll milk it."

That should help Katz's future books. But he'll let you in on a little secret. Dog books aren't necessarily about dogs.

"When you write about dogs, you're really writing about the people who own them."