Greg Kincaid, who authored “A Dog Named Christmas,” is a practicing attorney who lives on a farm in eastern Kansas with his wife, Michale Ann, and their dogs and cats. He is a companion animal adoption advocate who wrote “A Dog Named Christmas” to raise awareness of how adopting animals from rescue shelters benefits both the animals that find good homes and the families that open their hearts and homes to the animals they adopt.

Todd McCray, a developmentally challenged 20-year-old man, resides on his parents’ Kansas farm. The novel is written from the perspective of George McCray, Todd’s father, a partially disabled Vietnam veteran who describes the occasion when, one early December afternoon, Todd came running to the barn with his radio while frantically attempting to write down a phone number. Handing his father the wrinkled note, Todd explained that the local animal shelter was looking for temporary homes for its dogs during the days leading to Christmas.

Todd wanted to participate in the program. George tells his son, “Todd, they always want you to adopt a dog. That’s what they do. Besides, we don’t need another animal around here, and most definitely not a dog … I’d spent twenty years saying no to Todd’s brothers and sisters and I saw no reason to change my mind now.”

Traumatic memories of his Vietnam experience still plagued George, who explained that “even after all these years, with very little effort, I can still close my eyes and hear bomb blasts, the rapid fire of the M-16s, the heavy thuds of a .45-caliber pistol, the shouts, the pleas, the orders, choppers, F-4s dropping napalm, and against it all — insects, a dull roar of crickets, gnats, mosquitoes, and flies.”

Later in the novel, George explains, “There was........

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