Janelle Condra thought her dog Torii would make a great character in a story. As a teacher, she’s read a lot of children’s books to students over her 32-year career. It wasn’t until last year that she decided to put her pen to paper and create “Torii’s Adventures,” a self-published book series she’s almost finished with.

“I just read so many books to students that I thought, ‘Hey, I can do that,’” Condra said. “I wrote it with the idea of what I kind of wanted the illustrations would be.”

“Torii’s Adventures” are usually seasonally themed, with pictures of Condra’s golden retrievers Torii and Marli interspersed with illustrations in the background provided by her husband Alan, a photographer with Drs. Forster & Smith, the pet supply company. Janelle, who worked as a special education teacher in Austin for 17 years, has written books about Torii’s summer, fall and winter adventures and is finishing up work on “Torii’s Spring Adventure.”

“It’s really what they do, and it’s really how they are when they’re at home, or playing in the woods,” Janelle said of her dogs.

She decided to self-publish after sending her manuscript to various book agencies and never got many replies. Each book takes a couple months to put together, although she’s had then written for about two years now.

Once the fourth book is done, she’ll try to get book companies to look at her work.

“Now I’m going to try them again and send them out as completed books so they can see them,” Janelle said. “So I’ll try it again, and see if somebody will maybe have four books.”

Her books are a family affair. While Alan ends up designing the illustrations and putting pages together using his photos, their daughters manage a web site dedicated to “Torii’s Adventures,” and work at marketing the books in Rhinelander, Wis., where Janelle and Alan live. Her father, Ken Davis, has put “Torii’s Adventures” at HyVee, Philomathian Books and Double K Specialty as well.

“Her books are something,” Davis said.

Janelle’s happy to have published her books, even if they sell locally and not through a book company. She said she probably won’t write more books if “Torii’s Adventures” doesn’t get picked up by a company, but she was happy to write them all the same.

“I might write them and then just keep them to myself until something happens,” she said.