Keke's Wisdom: The Making of The Dog Park Massacre with Ken Van Camp

Ken Van Camp: Training Humans with Keke's Tales

In this episode of the Open Forum in The Villages, Florida podcast, host Mike Roth interviews Ken Van Camp, a freelance writer, voiceover artist, and author. Ken discusses his move to The Villages in 2020, his involvement in local writing clubs, and his blog and book inspired by his dog, Keke. Ken shares humorous insights on Keke's antics, his writing process, and promoting his work. The episode also features an Alzheimer's tip from Dr. Craig Curtis. The podcast is listener-supported, with options for donations and Amazon affiliate purchases.

00:00 Introduction to Ken Van Camp
02:29 Ken's Background and Writing Journey
03:27 Keke's Guide to Training Your Human
04:51 Keke's Adventures and Training Techniques
06:42 Publishing and Promoting the Blog
07:57 The Dog Park Massacre
10:03 Inspiration Behind the Book
13:32 Target Audience and Book Details
14:35 Pricing and Availability
14:43 Understanding Kindle Unlimited
15:09 Clarifying the Book Series
15:33 Keke's Storytelling and Blog
15:48 A Humorous Interlude
17:01 Jokes and Podcast Anecdotes
17:34 Writing and Publishing Process
18:42 Keke's Adventures and Training
22:16 Vet Visits and Final Thoughts

Season 8 Introduction

Transcript

Keke's Wisdom: The Making of The Dog Park Massacre with Ken Van Camp

[00:00:00] Dolores: Welcome to the Open Forum in The Villages, Florida podcast. In this show, we talk to leaders in the community, leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live here in The Villages to get perspectives of what is happening here in The Villages, Florida. We are a listener supported podcast. There will be shout outs for supporters in episodes. In season six, we will continue making substantial improvements to the podcast.

[00:00:26] Mike Roth: This is Mike Roth, and listeners, I'm thrilled to share with you this podcast, which is my passion project for you. 

This podcast brings me joy, brings you knowledge, inspiration, and a lot of things that people need to know about the villages and the people living here, be sure to hit the follow button to get the newest episode each week.

Creating this podcast is a labor of love. Even though it demands more time that I can easily spare. Now, here's where you come in. You can help us keep the podcast alive and thriving. 

How? By becoming a supporter. The easy way for you to support us is to visit our podcast webpage, openforuminthevillagesflorida. com and click on the supporter button at the top of the page or the purple supporter box on the right side of the page.

Even a small donation of three to ten dollars a month makes a big difference. And guess what? You can cancel your subscription at any time. No strings attached. Your support means the world to us. Stay curious, stay inspired, and keep those headphones on. I hope everyone enjoys today's show.

 [00:02:00] Mike Roth: This is Mike Roth on Open Forum in The Villages, Florida. I'm here today with Ken Van Camp. Ken is a freelance writer, voiceover artist, audio producer, dog lover, and author of the blog and podcast called Keke's Guide to Training Your Human. And he's written his first book. Called the Dog Park Massacre.

Thanks for joining me Ken. 

[00:02:27] Ken Van Camp: Thank you for having me Mike 

[00:02:29] Mike Roth: Ken, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit More about your background and the clubs

that you're active in here in The Villages 

[00:02:36] Ken Van Camp: Surer so I was most of my professional life. I've been doing software development did a lot of writing over the years, but it was mostly technical writing, non fiction. Some about computer stuff, but some other things about my hobbies, like sailing, for instance. 

Anyway, when I moved to The Villages which is in 2020, I set my sights on furthering myself as a writer. And I started, I joined some clubs. There's a great critique group called Writers of The Villages that taught me so much. about writing and really boosted my abilities. The Writer's League of The Villages, which is wonderful for promoting your work. And for meeting other writers. not sure I'm answering your question, but long story short, I started working more and more on writing once I came here. And that eventually led me to

creating my own blog. 

[00:03:29] Mike Roth: Now the blog

[00:03:30] Ken Van Camp: called

[00:03:31] Mike Roth: Keke's, that must be the name of the dog. Guide to Training

[00:03:34] Ken Van Camp: Your Human.

[00:03:35] Mike Roth: Now that's a kind of backwards idea. Is it, humans supposed train their dogs? 

[00:03:40] Ken Van Camp: Exactly. 

[00:03:41] Mike Roth: And why did you come up with the backwards title? 

[00:03:44] Ken Van Camp: So after we got Keke as a puppy, which was 2023, we started discovering her personality, which was, it was fun. It was also, she was strong willed. They say that about beaver terriers, that's the type of, that's the breed she is.

That they are bit obstinate sometimes. They've got a mind of their own. And so Keke's mischievous. Sometimes she's even spiteful. And we found that there were funny things she was doing. And I started creating little memes on Facebook. Just wondering, what is she thinking? Eventually, I decided to turn it into a blog.

And I thought, what better way than to present all of this from her point of view. So the blog is written from Keke's perspective. And it's her ideas, obviously, and what I think she's thinking about how she's doing things to manipulate us sometimes. 

[00:04:42] Mike Roth: No kidding. Your dog is manipulating you. 

[00:04:46] Ken Van Camp: Yeah, absolutely.

She's training me to do things the way she wants me to do them. 

[00:04:51] Mike Roth: For instance?

[00:04:52] Ken Van Camp: For instance, how does she get the best treats? She's got to convince me. that I am giving her the good ones, and not so much the bad ones. And then there's the whole aspect of training a dog for house training. You're supposed to give them

treats.

If you read any of the training manuals. 

[00:05:10] Mike Roth: Yeah, when they go outside. 

[00:05:11] Ken Van Camp: You do it then, immediately, right? 

[00:05:13] Mike Roth: Correct. 

[00:05:14] Ken Van Camp: You don't wait until you come back inside because then you're training. 

[00:05:16] Mike Roth: There's no connection. 

[00:05:17] Ken Van Camp: Exactly. Keke has to train me to get it done right away. And she does. She looks me right in the eyes after she pees or poops out.

She'll just gaze at me. And it's 

a reminder, you've got to, hey, exactly, don't forget the treat 

[00:05:31] Mike Roth: oh, that's good. Has Keke trained you in any other ways? 

[00:05:36] Ken Van Camp: Oh, yeah, you've got to read the book,

but yeah. Now, there's other things like there's a whole story about her first road trip.

And she sits in the back seat.

My wife and I sit in the front seats. She didn't like being all alone back there. She wants somebody to sit with her. The story is about how she convinces us to sit in the back. And of course, it deals with a lot of whining and things like that.

She doesn't like it.

Talk in this blog or book. She's, we don't understand what she's saying. Obviously we just infer from the normal doggy communication. 

[00:06:13] Mike Roth: So one of the two of you sits in the back seat with Keke. 

[00:06:17] Ken Van Camp: That's the way the story goes. Eventually. Yeah not in the beginning.

[00:06:21] Mike Roth: So how did you keep Keke in the back seat?

Was she leashed into something back there? 

[00:06:25] Ken Van Camp: Yeah. So she's got , a dog bed, if you will. And it's, it connects to her harness. 

[00:06:31] Mike Roth: Oh, okay. Yeah. We had a dachshund and he wouldn't stay in that dog bed in the backseat. He had a ride next to my wife.

[00:06:39] Ken Van Camp: No, Keke doesn't have a choice. 

[00:06:40] Mike Roth: Yeah. Okay. That's good. 

If someone wanted to read your blog, //Keke's Guide to Training Your Human how would they find it? 

[00:06:49] Ken Van Camp: Okay. So the blog is posted on both Substack and Medium. So they're both somewhat popular platforms for writing. Substack is the way that most people wind up finding it initially.

It's free. Substack is completely free, always free. Medium, on the other hand, charges 4 a month if you want to join. I always give out the Substack address. Medium is good for me to find followers on. Consequently, it's a social media platform. 

So you have this idea of, a lot of people say I'll follow you if you follow me.

That kind of thing. But it's great for getting the follower numbers up.

So I'm up around 800 followers on Medium. I've only got about 100 or so on

Substack, although, I think my followers on Substack are more

genuine.

[00:07:38] Mike Roth: So they're actually reading it on Substack.

[00:07:41] Ken Van Camp: I think a higher percentage are, yes. 

[00:07:43] Mike Roth: Yeah, I've noticed that some people on Substack are posting videos.

On the other side, I've always thought that it was an ineffective location for the videos. But, that's another whole conversation. 

The other Thing in the introduction is this title the Dog Park Massacre.

Now, where did you get that idea? 

[00:08:06] Ken Van Camp: Okay this is one of the 47 stories. In my new book 

[00:08:12] Mike Roth: 47 stories.

[00:08:13] Ken Van Camp: Yeah. They're short of course, so they, reading length is, under 500 words, which means about three or four minutes. Typically some of them are a little longer out to, six, even seven minutes, but they're short what I call bite size lessons in how to train your human. The dog park massacre is one of those stories in the book.

And it came from the blog originally. 

[00:08:34] Mike Roth: Is that about. A dog park here in The Villages? It is actually, yes. 

A massacre? 

[00:08:40] Ken Van Camp: This is Keke's perspective. 

[00:08:42] Mike Roth: Yeah. Okay. So what really happened? 

[00:08:44] Ken Van Camp: So Keke's very first trip to the dog park here in The Villages was a case where, she of course went to the small dog side.

I should mention that Keke is a very small dog, by the way. She's currently about five pounds and she's pretty much fully grown. 

[00:09:00] Mike Roth: Okay. 

[00:09:01] Ken Van Camp: She went the small dog's side. Even on the small dog's side, she's about the smallest dog there is. And that particular day, there were probably 20 other dogs there.

It started out wonderfully. Even from Keke's perspective, that they came up to greet her

Oh, look, there's a new kid in town here. And But they crowded around, they wanted to all see her, sniff her, do everything, and they wound up trampling her, of course.

[00:09:28] Mike Roth: wow.

[00:09:28] Ken Van Camp: That, the story progresses a little there. But have an acute little AI generated photo at one point where Keke is dressed as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles, which is my favorite football team. And So she pretends to be the running back and all of these opposing team members from the Dallas Cowboys, in this case, are chasing her down the field.

And she's headed for the goal line, which of course is the exit from the dog park and

gets tackled before she can ever reach it. 

[00:10:03] Mike Roth: Now what inspired you to write a book? A book from the dog's perspective. 

[00:10:08] Ken Van Camp: When I was younger, my favorite cartoon was Calvin and Hobbes. You remember Calvin and Hobbes?

Now, okay Bill Watterson wrote this wonderful cartoon about this six year old kid named Calvin and his stuffed tiger named Hobbes. 

[00:10:25] Mike Roth: Okay.

[00:10:26] Ken Van Camp: Calvin and Hobbes followed Calvin as he, he was something a menace to his parents. . So What I loved about Calvin and Hobbes was that Bill Watterson never talked down to his readers, even though he was writing a six year old story. He also dealt with real world problems. He was not only trying for the punchline, he talked about things like, There were observations of human behavior through the eyes of a six year old, such as commercialism, pollution.

He dealt with issues of bullying in school. And he did it in a way that was sometimes serious and sometimes mocking or satirical. And I always wanted to do something like that. Now I'm not a, an artist, so I certainly couldn't create a cartoon, but I'm a writer.

[00:11:19] Mike Roth: Today you could create the cartoon, it's very easy,

with all of the AI tools out there.

[00:11:26] Ken Van Camp: I do actually use some AI generated photos in my book. Some of them are.

Most of them I try to use real photos of Keke, just because

so photogenic.

[00:11:35] Mike Roth: Okay, coming up in October is my course on AIs. I'm supposed to cover ten. Different A. I. s in

two sessions of about two hours each the Enrichment Academy.

And late September, you'll be able to sign up for that.

And let's take a quick break here and listen to a Alzheimer's tip from Dr. Craig Curtis.

So, Dr. Curtis, what do you think the future looks like Alzheimer's treatment here in America? 

[00:12:00] Dr. Craig Curtis: I think the future looks very good. I think that these blood tests are going to make a significant difference in our ability to detect someone who's developing Alzheimer's disease. before symptoms. A person who develops memory loss due to Alzheimer's disease, we know that disease actually started approximately two decades or 20 years prior.

We know that amyloid starts building up for approximately 20 years, 15 to 20 years, which then initiates other brain cells or to die off essentially, which leads to Alzheimer's disease. So we're trying to remove that amyloid prior to that so we can prevent Alzheimer's disease. And we're also attempting to, once somebody already has the cognitive changes or memory symptoms, we're trying to figure out if we, if reducing that amyloid really slows the disease.

We now have, of course, the world's first medicine on the market that is slowing Alzheimer's disease by removing amyloid from the brain. And we're looking at newer, more advanced forms of those medications that remove the amyloid much more quickly in a matter of months. So, that's very exciting.

[00:13:13] Warren: With over 20 years of experience studying brain health, Dr. Curtis's goal is to educate the Villages community on how to live a longer, healthier life. To learn more, visit his website, CraigCurtisMD. com or call 352 500 5252 to attend a free seminar. 

[00:13:29] Mike Roth: I'm back with Ken Van Kamp. 

Ken Who is the target reader of your book, the Dog park Massacre? 

[00:13:38] Ken Van Camp: So the book is what I call family friendly fun. You are not

going to find bad language in there, for instance. I think that so much of

television

and movies are filled with profanity, that I didn't want to create anything more like that.

The worst words you're going to hear Out of Keke's mouth is, maybe she calls, the hindquarters, the butt, occasionally. But, having said that, the vocabulary level is clearly adult. There are words in there that, a kid is not going to understand. It's not intentional, it's just that I'm not talking down to my readers.

[00:14:14] Mike Roth: So you're writing to adults.

[00:14:16] Ken Van Camp: I am. And my target audience is dog lovers. I think that anybody who loves dogs is going to enjoy these stories about Keke. 

[00:14:26] Mike Roth: How long is the book, in pages? 

[00:14:27] Ken Van Camp: I think it's 160 pages.

[00:14:29] Mike Roth: The dog Park Massacre is a book that's available on Amazon right now? 

[00:14:34] Ken Van Camp: Yes it is. 

[00:14:35] Mike Roth: How much is it selling for?

[00:14:36] Ken Van Camp: So the paperback is 14. edition is 2. Okay. It's

available

on Kindle Unlimited. 

[00:14:43] Mike Roth: What's the difference and Kindle Unlimited for our listeners? 

[00:14:47] Ken Van Camp: Kindle Unlimited is a subscription so you pay a flat monthly rate, and you can read as many books as you want. 

[00:14:54] Mike Roth: That's gotta be for someone who's got a lot of time, or passed Ellen's Woods speed reading course.

[00:15:00] Ken Van Camp: It's amazing how popular Kindle Unlimited is. 

[00:15:03] Mike Roth: Yeah. There's a lot of good subscription services out there. Sure. Okay. 

 So Ken, Keke's Guide to Training Your Human is going to be a series of books.

[00:15:15] Mike Roth: do I have that right?

The first book that's currently available. is the Dog Park Massacre .

[00:15:20] Ken Van Camp: Exactly.

[00:15:21] Mike Roth: Got it. And, how many books are going to be in the series? 

[00:15:26] Ken Van Camp: I don't know at this point. I only know that, I believe that, at this point,

Keke has a lot more to say.

And she's continuing to tell me these little stories, in her way.

The blog continuing. I have many more stories that I've written about Passed the Dog Park Massacre. 

[00:15:44] Mike Roth: So let me get this straight, Keke is telling you stories.

[00:15:47] Ken Van Camp: Yes. 

[00:15:48] Mike Roth: That reminds me of an old joke. Okay. Driving down the road in Cincinnati,

in farm country, pass a sign that says, Talking Dog for Sale.

[00:15:57] Ken Van Camp: So

[00:15:57] Mike Roth: I can't believe the sign, so I stop, go in,

and the farmer is out front, and I say,

what's the deal with the talking dog? And he says go back in the barn. You'll find him. So I go back in the barn and there's this big dog just walking around. And I said, can you understand me? And the dog said, yeah.

And I said why would a dog talk? And the dog said

me I was trained by the CIA to be a spy.

I was supposed to go into Soviet Union. Russia, listen in to, and get adopted by military people, and then I was supposed to give my CIA operative

all the information that I collected. I had my own cell phone and everything. And I said, that's very interesting.

So when did you learn how to talk? And he said, oh, I learned how to talk as a puppy. I listened to people, and then I duplicated what they said. I said, Oh, so I left the barn and walked out to the farmer and said how much is that talking doggy that you want to sell?

And he said, it's

only five bucks. I said,

why so cheap? He said, the guy lies about everything.

[00:17:00] Ken Van Camp: Ha.

[00:17:01] Mike Roth: So I understand you have a joke for me, Ken. 

[00:17:03] Ken Van Camp: Yes, I do. 

[00:17:04] Mike Roth: Okay. 

[00:17:05] Ken Van Camp: How is a businessman different from a

hot dog?

[00:17:08] Mike Roth: I don't know. 

[00:17:09] Ken Van Camp: The businessman wears a suit. The dog, just pants. 

[00:17:13] Mike Roth: Oh. Let's see if my grandson, Evan, gets this far on the podcast. Okay. As he's discovered, not every one of my podcasts has jokes in it, but for first, probably, three. 70 episodes

I did, I always put a joke in for Evan. 

[00:17:28] Ken Van Camp: I remembered that, so that's why I offered you the joke. 

[00:17:31] Mike Roth: That's a good idea. I'll see if I get a call from Evan.

 Are you working now on the second book? In the series? 

[00:17:38] Ken Van Camp: No, not actively. At this point, I'm just continuing to write my stories every week. Publish them on my blog. By the way, the wonderful thing about publishing stories on a blog is that you get feedback, early feedback. You don't have to wait to compile a book and then look at the reviews, which obviously I will do.

[00:17:57] Mike Roth: You issue a new blog every week? Every week, 

[00:18:00] Ken Van Camp: yes. 

[00:18:01] Mike Roth: And if someone wanted to Find it. How would they do that?

[00:18:06] Ken Van Camp: So they would either go to substack. com 

S U B S T A C K

Or to medium. com, which is just like

sounds.

[00:18:14] Mike Roth: Okay, after they go to those websites, what

do they do? 

[00:18:17] Ken Van Camp: They would search on Keke's Guide.

So Keke, the important thing there is spelled K E K E. A lot of people want to spell it with I's instead. 

[00:18:26] Mike Roth: Probably just putting in Keke in is enough to get the search to find the book or the blog? 

[00:18:32] Ken Van Camp: I recommend saying Keke's Guide because otherwise you'll wind up with, there's a lot of other people out there actually named Keke.

[00:18:40] Mike Roth: Okay, I thought it was an unusual, unique name. 

So how old is Keke now?

[00:18:44] Ken Van Camp: She's a little more than a year old, a year and three months now. 

[00:18:47] Mike Roth: Why don't you tell our listeners what most unusual thing Keke has done in training her humans. 

[00:18:52] Ken Van Camp: So I think one of the conflicts that we had in here is with me being the editor, really the flunky of this blog and podcast as well,

Keke is the, not only the author, but also the editor and the artistic

director, and of course, what she calls the Potentate. .

[00:19:15] Mike Roth: So is she the PAC leader at Home , 

[00:19:18] Ken Van Camp: the Alpha dog?

Which leads to some conflicts because I think I'm the alpha dog. . But we have a whole story about when she when she took a vacation with one of our area neighbors. And had this conflict over who was the alpha dog.

Me, there's no problem. I know it. I'm not the alpha dog in the house.

But the neighbor who took her in for a week for us didn't know that. Had to be trained. 

[00:19:40] Mike Roth: Yeah so did she have separation anxiety? 

[00:19:44] Ken Van Camp: I think Keke does have separation anxiety in the real world. In her stories, she's totally confident. And she rules the roost.

[00:19:53] Mike Roth: I had a miniature Dachshund that had terrible separation anxiety.

He couldn't be away from my wife. . And he got very misbehaved. Let's put it that way. 

[00:20:03] Ken Van Camp: Keke's very outgoing. I take her to the squares, something landing, places like that. She loves to see other people, and other dogs, and just loves everybody, really.

She's a very loving dog. 

[00:20:17] Mike Roth: Do you let her walk on the ground, or do you put her in a carrier, or in a stroller?

[00:20:22] Ken Van Camp: Oh, no, she walks on the ground. 

[00:20:24] Mike Roth: She walks on the ground. Does she have little booties to protect her feet from the hot pavement? 

[00:20:28] Ken Van Camp: Only on the really hot days. She's pretty good with it. She doesn't, as long as there's a little bit of shade out there, she's fine. 

[00:20:35] Mike Roth: And you take along some water to feed her?

[00:20:37] Ken Van Camp: Of course, yeah. Another part to this interesting story about me being the flunky, and she being the true editor in chief, was that I, one time, hijacked her blog, and I wrote about something from my perspective, and I inserted it into the blog. She took me to task in the following lesson. 

[00:21:00] Mike Roth: What'd she say?

[00:21:01] Ken Van Camp: She had to say was first of all, she was very upset. She threatened me with losing my position on the project replacing me. This became a sort of a simmering dispute that continued on for the next nine episodes of the blog. And she calls them lessons by the way, and

The chapters

the book are also labeled lessons until finally it came to a head.

And we had to learn to compromise, or really to be more specific she demanded and I compromised. 

[00:21:35] Mike Roth: And the compromise was?

[00:21:37] Ken Van Camp: It was various things that she wanted, among them, of course, not hijacking her blog and recognizing that she was, the ruler in charge, but the other parts are things like she wanted professional haircuts, not these hat jobs that her owners, as we call ourselves due to her, when we're trying to be cheap and save money on these cause these haircuts can be expensive and she's a, she's one of these dogs breeds that the hair continues to grow continuously. It could get very long if you let it go.

[00:22:10] Mike Roth: Okay.

And so you can see it as a professional groomer? 

[00:22:14] Ken Van Camp: Yes.

[00:22:15] Mike Roth: Okay. 

And what did Keke say about going to the vet? 

[00:22:19] Ken Van Camp: Ah, the vet. There's an interesting story itself.

But one of the things that Keke brought up about vets

was that humans tend to exaggerate the fun factor.

in anything that they want you to believe is going to be a good trip. And so the trip to the vet was one of these. Which what she found out, of

course was that things like rectal thermometers are not so much fun, 

[00:22:46] Mike Roth: yeah. My dog discovered that, too.

[00:22:49] Ken Van Camp: And shots. There's another one. 

[00:22:50] Mike Roth: Oh, yeah, shots.

[00:22:51] Ken Van Camp: Not so much favorites, right? 

[00:22:53] Mike Roth: So is she afraid to even go into the vet's office? 

[00:22:55] Ken Van Camp: She knows the office now. . Yeah, I have to pick her up and usher her in. Gather her in, yeah. She's not going to go in on her own. 

[00:23:03] Mike Roth: Ken, here we are. You had the dog a year and a half, right? Okay. If I could. Move you in time and take everything you know now back to the first day that you got your dog, Keke. What would you tell yourself on that first day? 

[00:23:19] Ken Van Camp: You don't know what you're getting yourself into!

She's really a loving dog, though. Honestly, we don't regret a thing. 

[00:23:26] Mike Roth: Good. Thanks for being a guest on the show. 

[00:23:29] Ken Van Camp: Thank you for having me, Mike. 

[00:23:30] Mike Roth: Thanks, Ken. 

[00:23:31] Monica: Remember, our next episode will be released next Friday at 9 A M. Should you want to become a major supporter of the show or have questions, please contact us at mike@rothvoice.com. This is a shout out for supporters Tweet Coleman, Ed Williams, Paul Sorgen, and major supporter Dr. Craig Curtis at K2 in the Villages.

We will be hearing more from Dr. Curtis with short Alzheimer's tips each week. If you know someone who should be on the show, contact us at mike@rothvoice.Com. We thank everyone for listening to the show. The content of the show is copyrighted by Rothvoice 2024. All rights reserved.