From the lamb that thought he was human to the dog with nine lives, in Touching Tales: Endearing True Stories from the Animal Kingdom, Heather compiled a series of strange, silly and sometimes poignant animal anecdotes. Launching the book at the Inverell Library late last week, Heather said the theme for her was joy.

“When I signed the books today I just wrote the word ‘joy’,” she said. It was a noticeable contrast from her last two books 16 years ago, which explored the idea of grief after the death of her son.

“They were therapeutic for me but a lot of grieving people appreciated them because they could see someone else understood - but they were a very serious topic,” she said.

“This one is a totally different feel to it.”

Heather said she was intrigued by the unusual and surprising things animals could do. Once she began the book, her friends began lining up with their own tales. She interviewed people over coffee, collected emailed stories and took them down over the phone.

“I scribbled, scribbled, scribbled and then... that should be there, this should be here - fiddled, edited it,” she said.

Most of the accompanying photos were authentic shots of the animals involved, but Heather enlisted Graham to help her re-create some of the scenes. One story that required some creative thinking was the tale of the frog who wouldn’t leave the toilet bowl in the Kerridges’ garage.

“He kept coming back and kept coming back, and everything we did - put him back in the dam, he kept coming back and that was like 10 years ago, but I didn’t think of a camera,” Heather said. When she saw a similar green frog on a brick wall at a friend’s place, Heather jumped at the chance to photograph the scene.

“I said to Graeme, I said ‘I want that frog!’ so he claps a Chinese takeaway dish on top of it and takes it home,” she said. Things didn’t go quite to plan.

“We’re standing there in the toilet in the garage and he’s got a camera that side of the toilet, I’ve got a camera this side of the toilet and he drops the frog in. We both go ‘click’ and when we look at our cameras there’s a toilet - no frog. The frog had disappeared down the u-bend!” Determined to get their shot, the couple waited patiently for the creature to return.

“Sure enough he did.  As soon as I saw him, I took about 40 photos - ‘I’ve got to make sure I get him this time!’”

Heather said the most special part of writing the book was the encouragement she had from her friends, children, and of course, Graham.

“I mean, could you imagine any man on this planet standing at a toilet ready to photograph a frog? Could you imagine any man on the planet doing that?”