A Dog's Purpose

“Then, astoundingly, the gate clicked open. My mother had opened the gate! She dropped her paws to the ground and shouldered the gate aside, sniffing cautiously at the air on the other side of the fence.”

Bailey learns many lessons throughout his several lives. This quote is one of the lessons Bailey learns, watching his mother use her mouth and bodyweight to open a gate meant to be used only by the humans. Bailey will use this skill himself multiple times throughout the novel. This moment is also pivotal for Bailey because it forces him to choose between the safe, comfortable life he is enjoying among humans and his loyalty to the mother who taught him to be afraid of humans. In this is another lesson that Bailey will learn soon after, that humans play an important role in a dog’s life.

“Unbidden, the sadness I’d felt from Senora washed through me, and I wanted to squirm up to her and lick her palms and make her happy again. Of all the things I’d done, making Senora laugh seemed the most important.

It was, I reflected, the only thing that gave my life any purpose.”

At the end of his first life, Bailey reflects on the purpose of his life. This is the first time purpose enters his thought process. It is important to note that his first thought of life’s purpose is centered on his relationship with a human because it will be this desire to be with humans, to make them happy, that will serve as motivation for Bailey throughout his many lives. This theme, Purpose in Life and How It Impacts Certain Actions, will reoccur throughout the novel.

“I could remember the loud, hot room, Spike filing the air with his fury and then abruptly falling into a slumber so deep it was as if he’d opened a gate with his mouth and run away. I remember becoming sleepy, and then there was the sense that much time had passed, the way a nap in the afternoon sun will span the day and suddenly it will be time for the evening feed. This nap, though, brought me not just to a new time but to a new place.”

Bailey remembers being put down but doesn’t understand fully what was happening. When he wakes in a new place and time, he slowly comes to the conclusion that he has been born again with the memories of his earlier life. This happens twice more after this moment, with Bailey waking and remembering his earlier life as he finds himself back to puppyhood and forced to adapt to a new life. Bruce W. Cameron captures the wonder and trusting nature of a dog in this description, with Bailey ignorant of humans’ indifference toward his leg injury and likely inability to be adopted. There is no anger, just some confusion and weariness with starting over.

“I guess I had never bothered to consider that there might be such a thing as a boy, but now that I had found one, I thought it was just about the most wonderful concept in the world. He smelled of mud and sugar and an animal I’d never scented before, and a faint meaty odor clung to his fingers, so I licked them.”

This is the moment Bailey meets Ethan. As the novel progresses, Ethan becomes the center of Bailey’s world and will later be the focus of Bailey’s search for purpose. Bailey has already recognized that humans play an important role in a dog’s life, but this moment expands this understanding as Bailey is introduced to the more vulnerable members of the human race. Bailey and Ethan will quickly develop a relationship that will color Bailey’s understanding of the world through his subsequent lives.

“The tantalizing odors drew my head farther and farther through the dog door until suddenly, quite by accident, I was out in the yard, without the boy having to push me.

Delighted, I tore around the backyard, barking. It was as if the dog door had been put there to let me out into the backyard from the garage!”

Cameron captures the presumed thoughts of a dog who has just learned the purpose of the trick his owner has been trying to teach him. The idea that a dog would be so excited and so innocent about such a moment is enduring, one of the elements that makes the novel wholesome to readers. This moment also shows Bailey’s high level of intelligence as he does, no matter how it happened, come to the conclusions Ethan has been attempting to teach him.

“When Todd shoved it at me I already knew I didn’t want my nose anywhere near the tube, and I jerked my head away. I sensed the flash of rage in Todd, and it frightened me. He picked up a cloth and dripped a lot of clear liquid from the tube onto it, folding and squeezing the cloth so that the sticky coating was all over it.”

Todd’s violent behavior is noted here for the first time. Bailey is the only witness outside of Todd’s family members, unaware that he is a potential victim in Todd’s attempt to hurt him with model glue, perhaps to knock him out or glue his nose. He does not succeed, but this episode sets a precedent that allows the reader to understand that when another neighborhood dog, Marshmallow, disappears, Todd is likely responsible—even though Bailey himself doesn’t understand what Todd attempted to do to him or why Todd smells like Marshmallow the day she disappears.

“The rest of the afternoon was spent playing ‘Rescue Me,’ and my anxiety gradually dissipated as I learned that the boy could pretty much fend for himself in that pond, though it so delighted him whenever I hauled him to the surface I dove after him every single time.”

Another lesson Bailey learns is that humans sometimes need to be rescued. Bailey will use this lesson in his next life when he is trained to become a search-and-rescue dog. Throughout the novel, Bailey learns many lessons that help him figure out what his purpose in life is, touching again on the theme of Purpose in Life and How It Impacts Certain Actions.

“At first she didn’t see it, but then as she approached, the snake suddenly pulled back, lifting its head, and that’s when Flare screamed. Her front legs came off the ground and she spun, kicking, and the boy went flying off her back. I ran to him at once, of course, but he was okay.”

Bailey proves his loyalty to Ethan when they find themselves stranded in the woods after the horse Ethan was riding runs at the sight of a snake. Bailey doesn’t completely understand the situation, which explores the notion of Bailey as an unreliable narrator, but he understands enough that he never leaves Ethan’s side. Once again, he learns a lesson about the interactions between dogs and humans.

“I realized there was a bridge across the river, and, as I watched, a figure broke out of the gloom and walked along the railing, peering at the water. Ethan’s heart rate ticked up; I could hear it. His excitement, though, faded into a fear, and he shrank back, reminding me of my first mother’s reaction when we would come across men while we were hunting.”

While lost with Ethan, Bailey finds an area that smells of people, allowing him to guide Ethan to safety. It is an area unfamiliar to Bailey but is now imprinted in his memories. There will be a time later in the novel when Bailey remembers this area, and it will bring him back to Ethan in Bailey’s fourth life. Ethan’s reaction to the man also brings forth memories Bailey has of his first mother and the fear she always had of humans, confusing Bailey because he has developed a trust of humans due to his belief that a dog’s life is interdependent on humans.

“Todd was one of the children who were helping to look for Marshmallow, and curiously, her scent was on his pants. I sniffed him carefully, and he frowned and pushed my head away. His shoes were muddy and Marshmallow’s scent was strong there, too, plus other things I couldn’t identify.”

Bailey’s suspicions of Todd continue, with this quote marking a moment in which it appears Todd has done something criminal to a neighborhood dog. As an unreliable narrator, Bailey cannot outright say that Todd did something to Marshmallow, but his reaction to the scents he smells on Todd is telling. This moment, along with other similar moments, foreshadows Todd’s continued criminal behavior and an event that will change both Bailey’s and Ethan’s lives.

“Any reluctance I might have felt to attack a human being was overridden by the sense that whatever Todd was doing, it was causing harm to the boy and to the family I was there to protect. There was no stronger purpose than that.”

Bailey once again focuses on the purpose of his life, touching on the theme of Purpose in Life and How It Impacts Certain Actions, as he witnesses Todd lighting a fire in the living room of Ethan’s home. He briefly struggles with his understanding that the lives of humans and dogs are interdependent. Bailey doesn’t want to hurt humans but also knows that his purpose in this life is to protect Ethan and his family. This is also the moment that all the foreshadowing earlier in the novel has led to, the moment in which Todd’s actions change Ethan and Bailey’s lives. Finally, this moment teaches Bailey another lesson in that it is sometimes necessary to attack a human to protect other humans.

“I didn’t like the apartment, and neither did Dad. He yelled at Mom a lot more there than at the house. The place was small, and, even worse, we were there without the boy. Both Dad and Mom would often smell like Ethan, but he wasn’t living with us anymore, and my heart ached. At night I would pace the house, compelled to wander around restlessly, until Dad would yell at me to lie down. Dinner, the high point of my day, was not as interesting when Mom served it to me—I just didn’t feel hungry, and sometimes didn’t finish it.

Where was my boy?”

Bailey shows his connection to Ethan in the aftermath of the fire that left Ethan with a broken leg and burns to his face. Cameron captures Bailey’s depression without overly personifying him, expressing Bailey’s confusion and sadness at being apart from Ethan. Bailey’s thoughts also show that although he lives in a family with multiple members, his closest connection is with Ethan, a fact that brings Bailey back to Ethan in his future lives. In this way, Cameron foreshadows the end of the novel.

“And then, just like that, the pain was gone—in fact, I felt like a puppy again, full of life and joy. I remembered feeling like this the first time I ever saw the boy, coming out of his house and running to me with his arms open wide. That made me think of diving after the boy during rescue, the fading light as I dove deeper, the way the thick water pushed against my body, just like now. I could no longer feel the boy’s hands touching me; I could just feel the water on all sides: warm and gentle and dark.”

Bailey’s death at the end of his first life with Ethan illustrates the theme of Death as Passage to the Next Life. This death is filled with love and compassion, unlike Bailey’s first life, but like most deaths, this one is shrouded in the unknown. While Bailey does understand that he is dying, and that this is his moment to say goodbye to Ethan, he doesn’t know what will happen next. At this point in the story, Bailey’s thoughts aren’t focused on whether or not this will be the end of his continuous life, but on Ethan and the love they shared. It is also important to note that he associates the sensation of dying with the rescue game he played with Ethan, a game that will prove an important lesson in his next incarnation.

“A few weeks later I was in the yard, showing one of my brothers who was boss, when I stopped and squatted and all at once realized I was a female! I sniffed in amazement at my urine, snarling a warning when my brother took the opportunity to barrel into me. What would Ethan think?

How could I, Bailey, be a girl dog?”

As Bailey begins a new life, he becomes aware of his new surroundings and his new body. In this, he comes to the conclusion that he is now a girl, something he finds both surprising and annoying because it appears that even dogs have biases often unconsciously assigned to certain genders (at least in Cameron’s portrayal, which is likely inspired by real-life power dynamics among animals). However, Bailey makes it clear to his sibling that these gender biases will not apply to them. This moment also reveals that Bailey retains strong memories of his previous lives and that his connection with Ethan is still strong enough that he cares what Ethan might think of his new incarnation—a fact that foreshadows Bailey’s future actions in regard to his search for purpose.

“I’d fulfilled my purpose and found the girl and she was safe. But now Jakob was hurt and was gone and I was sleeping at the kennel for the first night ever. I couldn’t help but feel that somehow I was being punished.”

After a particularly dangerous search-and-rescue mission, Jakob is shot, creating a tornado of emotions inside of Bailey. Cameron uses human emotions to express how useless Bailey feels in the aftermath of the shooting and how dogs fail to understand the actions of humans in many instances and feel punished due to this lack of understanding. This illustrates the use of an unreliable narrator as Bailey struggles with the aftermath of the day’s work and his missing partner. It also underscores Bailey’s understanding of humans and dogs’ interdependence on each other, as Jakob’s presence and actions give Bailey cues as to how he should feel about certain situations and whether or not he is a “good boy.”

“Dogs are not allowed to choose where they live; my fate would be decided by people. But I nonetheless felt torn inside, conflicted.

Jakob was far better at work than Maya. But Maya didn’t carry that inner core of sadness with her all the time; she felt genuine joy at Mama’s house, where there were all the children to play with. Yet Jakob didn’t have cats.”

This quote adds humor to the plot, with Bailey struggling between loyalty to his first partner in this life (Jakob) and the fact that his second owner (Maya) has cats living in her home. However, this moment again underscores Bailey’s understanding that his life is strongly interdependent on the humans around him. Bailey has no choice as to where he lives. Only the people in his life can make this choice. Bailey’s blind acceptance of this previously put his life in danger, but he continues to be trusting and faithful to his people, a core trait that humans have always recognized in dogs.

“I sat and regarded Jakob. He was so different than when I last saw him—the coldness in him seemed to have gone away. This little girl Alyssa, I realized, was his child, and the woman was the girl’s mother. Jakob had a family now, and he was happy. That’s what was different. In all the time I’d known him, Jakob had never once been happy.”

Bailey is sensitive to the emotions of the humans around him; therefore, he always understood that Jakob was filled with sorrow, though he was unable to understand that it was because Jakob’s wife had died. When Bailey runs into Jakob again years after they stopped being partners, Bailey notes the change in Jakob after he married and had a child, teaching Bailey another lesson. Bailey understands that a wife and child took sadness away from Jakob and replaced it with happiness, a lesson he will use in a future life.

“Then Maya and I did school, only this one was all adults her age. We sat with lights in our eyes while a man talked in a loud voice, and then he came over and put a silly collar around my neck while even brighter lights, the ones like silent lightning, popped on and off all around us, the way they did when I was with Mom, after the fire that hurt Ethan’s leg. The man also pinned something on Maya’s uniform, and everybody clapped. I felt pride and love coming off of Maya, and when she whispered to me that I was a good dog I felt proud, too.”

Cameron uses unreliable narration to show how Bailey struggles to understand what is happening around him. In this quote, Bailey is being honored—as Ellie—for saving a missing boy during a storm, but Bailey only understands that Maya has taken them to a public-speaking occasion similar to ones they have done in the past. Yet, Bailey feels Maya’s emotions, and this gives a hint as to what is happening. At the same time, Cameron uses description to illustrate the actual situation to the reader.

“This had to be why, when I left Ethan, I was reborn as Ellie—everything that I had done, everything I had ever learned, had been leading up to being a good dog who saved people. It wasn’t as much fun as being a doodle dog, but I now knew why these creatures, these human beings, had so fascinated me from the moment I saw them. It was because my fate was inextricably linked with theirs. Especially Ethan—that was the bond of a lifetime.”

As Bailey reflects on his life as Ellie, he understands that his life will always be intertwined with humans, especially Ethan. This connection with Ethan is important because it foreshadows Bailey’s actions in his next life, as he struggles to find Ethan again. At the same time, Bailey believes he’s fulfilled his purpose through his first three lives and doesn’t believe he will be born again, something that foreshadows his initial discontent with his fourth life.

“But there was a purpose to my life, now, a sense of direction even more powerful than the one that had brought me to town in the first place.

If, despite all the time and changes, the girl Hannah was here, then maybe the boy was here, too.

And if Ethan was still here, I would track him. I would Find Ethan.”

Bailey struggles to find a purpose in his fourth life because of the uncertain way in which it begins, but when he realizes he has been left close to Ethan’s grandparents’ farm, he begins looking for Ethan himself. Bailey has come full circle, beginning this series of lives as a stray dog and ending up a stray again. However, he has learned many lessons through his lives and uses them to find his purpose yet again. If Bailey were a human, these lessons would culminate into a coming-of-age story.

“The second I was in the house, I clearly smelled the person blocking my way. I knew who he was: I would recognize that scent anywhere. Unmistakably Ethan. I’d found the boy.”

Touching on the theme of Purpose in Life and How It Impacts Certain Actions, Bailey focuses on finding Ethan. Cameron describes the moment Bailey finds Ethan again through Bailey’s perspective, including the dog’s confusion that Ethan doesn’t look like the young man he was when Bailey’s life ended during their time together. This moment was foreshadowed in previous chapters and is a triumphant moment for Bailey.

“That’s when it occurred to me that my purpose in this world had never been just to Find; it had been to save. Tracking down the boy was just part of the equation. […] For Ethan to be rescued, he needed to have a family. He needed a woman and to have a baby with her. Then he would be happy.”

Bailey picks up lessons throughout all his lives. During his third life, he made the observation that gaining a family caused Jakob to work through his darkness. With Ethan, Bailey begins to recognize the same sort of darkness, though it is different and not always present. For this reason, Bailey puts Jakob’s lesson into play to help Ethan lose his own darkness for good. This again reinforces the theme of Purpose in Life and How It Impacts Certain Actions, as Bailey believes it is his purpose to bring Ethan happiness.

“I understood it now, why I had lived so many times. I had to learn a lot of important skills and lessons, so that when the time came I could rescue Ethan, not from the pond but from the sinking despair of his own life.”

Cameron uses Bailey as an unreliable narrator throughout the novel, but this does not mean that Bailey is not intelligent or observant. As Bailey moves through his lives, he takes every experience and learns from it. In this fourth life, Bailey has struggled with his continuing existence because he felt he had fulfilled his purpose in his previous lives. However, Bailey realizes he is meant to rescue Ethan in more ways than one. This shows his growth and maturity.