Terry Spear | Cubs in a Jaguar Romance

When one of my fans sent me a picture of two white tiger cubs, I thought they were adorable. And then when someone mentioned writing about them, I had the notion of adding a couple of cubs in the next jaguar story, JAGUAR PRIDE.

It's important to always come up with new plot ideas when writing a long-running series, and this is book 4 of the jaguar shifters. I thought about how fun it would be to have two JAG agents, super well-trained in rescue missions and more, who are suddenly faced with dealing with Jaguar Cub Parenting 101 in the rainforest in a hostile situation.

Right now I'm housebreaking two Havanese puppies. But years ago, I had taken in a kitten from the Kitty Welfare Society when she was found at a garbage dumpster. She passed away at 17 years of age after having been much loved for all those years. But when she was only 6 weeks of age, I fed her milk out of a bowl and what a mess. The puppies are harder to housebreak, but they have no trouble eating or drinking out of a bowl or learning commands—sit, down, circle, stay, and shake as in shake my hand. My kitten was a dream as far as using a litter box. Natural, no trouble at all. But housebreaking puppies is a constant effort until they get the notion to let you know they need to go out. I remember when my Labrador retriever was a puppy, she would sit at the closet door to let me know she needed to go out.

But what if you have shifters and one minute they're fine, using a litter box, like a kitten of 4 to 6 weeks can use, and then they're babies, and you don’t have the necessary diapers and the like?

Babies, puppies, kittens, they all need attention, and lots of it. I've been reading up on separation anxiety, and I thought that by having two puppies they wouldn't have separation anxiety. The one doesn't, not after initially getting him used to his crate. He's a little older, 5 ½ months old, perfectly housebroken, but the younger one at nine weeks old does. I barricaded them into one part of the family room so I could take down the Christmas decorations without them being underfoot so I wouldn't step on them. The youngest barked nearly the whole time, yet a little fence was all that was between us while I was only a foot or so away.

I also read up on jaguar cubs and how one big cat reserve takes care of them. It's rare that jaguars mate in captivity, but this reserve has a couple of mating jaguars and they've produced several litters. They wean them young from the mother, and then feed the cubs from bottles, play with them, and even burp the babies. Who would have ever thought? They had a video of them and I watched them and used some of their behaviors in Jaguar Pride.

So adding the cubs in the story was a lot of fun, different, and it showed a new side to the rough and tough jaguar agents. Although they did have to get expert advice from Huntley's mother on how to feed the cubs, once she could stop laughing.

I'll be dealing with this in the future in another story, but a much different issue. So be ready for some more fun with the younger part of the equation. And you never know, I might have to share some puppy behaviors in one.

Have you had kittens or puppies to raise? Or both? And babies? Just think if your baby was a shifter and someone else was stuck, or, had the fortune of caring for the baby and you had to shift and so did baby?

It can be a real challenge then! But the perfect opportunity for two courting jaguars to get a head start on their future with cubs of their own.

Don't you agree?

About JAGUAR PRIDE

An impossible mission...

JAG Special Forces agents Huntley Anderson and Melissa Overton are hot on the trail of poachers when they're suddenly saddled with two jaguar shifter cubs. They have to locate the parents, pronto-but who's going to babysit in the meantime?

A lifetime of possibilities...

Huntley is a rough, tough jaguar shifter and an all-business agent, but he's not going to let two abandoned youngsters come to any harm on his watch.

Seeing her super-manly partner try to get the playful cubs under control stirs up some unexpected desires in Melissa, and she begins to feel like Huntley's not the only one who's in over his head...

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Read Fresh Fiction's review of JAGUAR PRIDE.

About Terry Spear

USA Today bestselling author Terry Spear has written over two dozen paranormal romance novels and medieval Highland historical romances. In 2008 HEART OF THE WOLF was named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. A retired officer of the U.S. Army Reserves, Terry also creates award-winning teddy bears that have found homes all over the world. She lives in Crawford, Texas.

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