A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron

My dog is a chocolate Lab named Ruby. We adopted her into our family when she was four years old. Now she is eight and a half years old, and she has changed every one of us in the family in ways we could not have imagined. She is the first dog for all five of the human members of our family and taught us everything we know about dogs. Before my relationship with Ruby, I would have found Cameron's book about dogs overly sentimental and exaggerated in its depictions of dog psychology. Now, thanks to Ruby's wisdom and depth, I can accept the protagonist of this book and the premise that dogs understand us in many ways better than we understand ourselves. The protagonist/narrator of this book is a dog who lives several lives, each time finding a new purpose and accomplishing some notable achievement. Each time the dear dog dies, I cried, because I am not a heartless scoundrel, and because it seemed that each life represented a worthy endeavor to live with authenticity and love. Each new life, then, had me wondering how the dog could possibly do any better or feel any more fulfilled, and each go-round the author brings another component into play. By the end, when this dog has realized canine nirvana, I knew that I was right about my own dog: Ruby loves me completely, she wants nothing more from life than playing, eating, and walking...all at my side. Every minute we are together she is satisfied, and every minute we are apart, she is waiting for us to be together. Cat lovers may scoff, but our dogs recognize that part of our humanity which we may sometimes doubt or lose. This is the protagonist Cameron writes, one unafraid to love, unabashed in devotion, better than husband, Mom, or best friend. Only a dog-lover could get it...and, evidently, many of them have. I know bandwagons aren't cool, but neither am I. And my dog loves me anyhow.