Victoria Schade Books in Order

Victoria Schade has built a career around understanding dogs, then turned that experience into practical training books and warm, funny romance novels. Her stories often put dogs right in the middle of human messes, whether that means a rescue pup, a difficult foster dog, or a canine custody dispute.

Her route into this work started with a career change. In 2000, Schade left a corporate job to train dogs professionally, beginning a path that would combine hands-on behavior work, writing, and television.

Dogs have been the through line ever since.

In 2006, she worked on Puppy Bowl III, and she went on to spend many years working on Animal Planet's annual Puppy Bowl specials as a trainer and animal wrangler. She also appeared on two seasons of Animal Planet's Faithful Friends. It is a useful background for a writer who knows that dogs can be lovable, complicated, anxious, stubborn, and very good at changing a person's plans.

Schade's nonfiction came first. Bonding with Your Dog focuses on trust, mutual respect, and building a better relationship rather than trying to dominate a pet. Secrets of a Dog Trainer takes a problem-solving approach to common behavior issues, using positive reinforcement and case studies to show how small challenges can grow when they are handled badly.

She also wrote training and behavior material for pet publications and appeared in educational videos. That work calls for care and clarity, because readers may try the advice with a real dog at home. Her fiction gives her a different kind of room to play, while still using what she knows about the everyday reality of life with animals.

Her first novel, Life on the Leash, arrived in 2018. It follows a highly organized dog trainer whose professional confidence does not make dating any simpler. Who Rescued Who sends a recently fired American woman to rural England, where an abandoned puppy, newly discovered family, and a changed set of priorities complicate her short visit. The book was also published as Someone to Love in some editions.

Later novels keep the dog-loving setup but move to fresh places and conflicts. Lost, Found, and Forever centers on two people who both believe a rescue dog belongs with them. In Dog Friendly, an exhausted veterinarian heads to Nantucket for a summer break and finds work, family, and romance waiting for her. Unleashed Holiday brings an old rivalry, a badly behaved boxer, and Christmas pressure together in a dog-training business complex.

Her newer romances branch out from the pet world. Pick Me follows a cowboy-romance ghostwriter who takes up pickleball and finds herself drawn to her gruff coach. Fated Skates puts two athletes with bruised public reputations on a collision course during the Winter Olympics.

Schade lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, Tom, her dogs, and the occasional foster pup. Their 1850s home is, by her own description, always in need of renovation. That sounds about right for a life that makes room for dogs, drafts, projects, and a little chaos.