Dog Tails is a self-produced book series, written by Yates G. Snyder and illustrated by Kirsten B. Winkle. Volume 1 includes two short stories about Maeva, the 11 year old Akita German Shepherd mix, and Duke, the 1 year old Great Dane puppy.
What started off as creative jumpstart project, the two started writing rhymes about their dogs playing together, capturing their unique personality traits. After reading the stories to their nieces and nephews, Snyder and Winkle collaborated over a three month period to write and illustrate the two short stories. After testing with children ages 2-11 years old, they saw more success with black and white copies that kids could interact with. They proceeded with the printing of local professionally bound copies in Durham, North Carolina, Triangle Web Publishing and by January 2021, they had a self-published book!
There are only 13 hand-bound black and white copies of the first two stories, and 100 professionally bound copies of Dog Tails, purchased here.
Coloring book PDFs can be purchased here.
From “Duke the Diggingest Dog”
From “Maeva the Beggingest Dog”
Example of interior printed pages
Process of finalizing sketches
Dog Tails, the early days