MY FAMILY CIRCUS

A NOVEL/SCREENPLAY

A big family realizes it has to “downsize” its pet population.

At summer’s end on the Southside of Chicago, overworked parents Mike and Dolores Doyle tell their eight feisty kids it’s time to have a backyard circus before they give away all the chickens, ducks, geese, turtles, the pig, opossum and spider monkey. The remaining pets (tired German Shepherds King and Duke and ornery cats Queenie and Duchess) are also recruited as performers.

The circus is a disaster for King. All the neighborhood kids say, “he’s just an old dog that needs to be put to sleep.” King runs away from home to find proof that he was once a heroic police dog. After he’s gone, his son Duke and the cats realize that he was the glue that kept the family together.

We follow King through the mean streets of Chicago while the Doyle kids campaign to find him.