When I ask friends and acquaintances about their specialties so I can get the details in books right, usually it’s simple stuff. Ask the naval historian who commanded the Adriatic Squadron in the early days of WWI, and out pops “Ernest Troubridge.” Ask the martial arts enthusiast to show me how to disarm the fellow with the blaster, and I’m soon flat on the ground.
But sometimes what I need to know is a little…unusual. Hence, our veterinarian’s response when I call with another one of those questions. I’ve asked him about embryo transplant in large and small animals, for instance, and the kinds of conditions that might show up in inbred stock of a certain lineage, about cloning and chimaeras.
Then came the pup Rascal in the Vatta’s War series. As the story progressed through several volumes, Rascal’s role needed to grow…but what use is a terrier on a space ship with no rats? He couldn’t bite the bad guy until he and the bad guy weren’t separated by a million miles of vacuum. Then I saw a news spot about the stud fees for some show dogs. And the characters had a cash-flow problem. Aha! Where would an unpedigreed dog command a stud fee? In a culture where dogs had nearly disappeared but were highly valued.
Now I needed to know a few vet-type things. Was this pup old enough? (I couldn’t change his age; the book in which he first appeared was already out there in print.) And though I knew frozen semen was used for artificial insemination in horses and cattle, was it in dogs? And…um…how often? And…um…how much? And how did vet clinics handle that sort of thing?
So I called our vet. The receptionist responded to my usual, “It’s not an emergency or anything; I’d just like to ask a question for a book,” with “Another book? Science fiction or something else?”
In a few minutes I had our vet on the line. “What is it this time?” he asked. I explained about Rascal and the storyline I had in mind. Was it plausible? He started laughing. In the background, I could hear muffled chuckles–someone else must’ve been listening in.
Let me put it this way–vets are not prissy about the details of anything animal. In ten minutes I knew more intimate details about dog breeding than I’d ever imagined or really needed to know, and far more than I could put in the book. Age of fertility by breed, contracts between breeders and clinics, the growth of canine artificial insemination, skill level of the people involved, how vets examine the prospective breeding stock, what lab tests would be used, shipping containers and problems that occur with shipping canine semen (as opposed to bovine and equine), equipment for “collection,” and on and on.
“Call us any time,” he said, after I thanked him. “You’re always good for a laugh.”
I’m now writing fantasy again, and that means creatures that don’t exist here. Though our vet clinic handles exotic (this-world) animals, they really don’t know anything about levets or pinpigs…or dragons. I’m on my own with issues of draconic reproduction. But I’m tempted to call and ask, just to see what reaction I’d get.
“You want to know WHAT?”
about the author
Jason
January 25, 2010
at 2:53 pm
You’ve got to figure dragons are pretty much the same as Komodo dragons and Dinosaurs right? Where it gets confusing is Griffins.
Stephen Deas
January 25, 2010
at 2:58 pm
If your vet does know anything about draconic reproduction, do please let me know
Gloria Oliver
January 25, 2010
at 4:05 pm
Awesome post! And looks like in asking questions you’re keeping at least the vet and his people entertained. Heh heh
Ginger
January 26, 2010
at 8:29 am
It depends on the kind of dragon. Most seem to be of lizard lineage..
Terie Garrison
January 26, 2010
at 8:36 am
Yeah. At least I have enough reptile knowledge (having once bred snakes) to extrapolate out the draconic gestation period. Whether I came close to being right is another question entirely!
Eir de Scania
January 26, 2010
at 11:23 am
I imagine dragons to be built more like pterodaktyls, light-weight, efficient breathing system and so on.
I also imagine that while their courting rituals are in the air, the actual mating is on the ground, or they will have the same problems as whales do. Dragons lay eggs, that much is known from folklore.
Artificial insemination on dragons is not something I would recommend. Or even mention in front of the sapient ones.
Eowyn
January 26, 2010
at 12:01 pm
@ Eir de Scania – the implications and images from your comment are impressive (I’ve heard how grumpy male elephants are if collected via one methodology … the trick is to have the jeep already moving when you shoot him with the tranq antidote). I hate to THINK what a Dragon would do in similar situations.
Elizabeth, I love all the images in this blog and now have to go and start reading Vatta’s War (working on Gird at the moment).
Elizabeth Moon
January 26, 2010
at 1:31 pm
The dragons in Paks’s world are…a tad unusual, even for dragons. After I finished the first book (25 years ago, roughly), I wrote some short stories set in the same world, and one of them involved a mercenary who happened to be the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter (sort of thing) and came under a compulsion to visit the Father of Dragons. That story was never finished, but it taught me what my dragons were like and something about their reproductive processes. There’s a bit about the dragons’ eggs in Paks’s world in the story “Judgment” in MOON FLIGHTS (first published in THE DRAGON QUINTET.) A dragon arrived in the middle of the second book of the new group, quite unexpectedly and to the dismay of characters who thought they’d all been banished ages ago by Camwyn Dragonmaster. (The dragons have an entirely different view of Camwyn’s importance.)
For those interested in the Paksenarrion-world books (and the new one coming out in March), there’s a lot of background on the website I listed here, and discussion on its embedded blog.