 Some of the novel's human characters were based on the lives and mannerisms on locals living in Oro Valley, a suburb of Tucson, Arizona.In 1967, E. P. Dutton selected Mannix's unpublished novel as the 1967 winner of its annual "Animal Book Award"—an international competition open to new authors in which an editorial panel evaluates submissions to find the "best book-length work of adult fiction or nonfiction on animals".Along with a cash prize of $10,000, the company obtained the publication rights for the novel, releasing it in hardback form on September 11 that year.