A Dog's Purpose Boxed Set

by W. Bruce Cameron

  We took walks down the streets and in the park. Sometimes CJ would fall asleep on a blanket on the grass and Trent would lie with her, watching her, a smile on his face.

  When we spent the day in the park I was always famished and wanted to eat as soon as we got home. I was dancing around impatiently in the kitchen on one such day, watching Trent make my dinner, when there was a slight change in the routine.

  “Going to take forever to finish my degree and then, when I think of my master’s, it’s like I’m going to be in my thirties. That used to seem so old!”

  CJ held my bowl up in the air. “Okay, Max. Pray,” she said.

  I tensed. I wanted dinner, but the command only made sense in the context of the odor that sometimes lingered on Trent’s breath.

  “He always does it for me,” Trent remarked. “Max? Pray!”

  CJ had my dinner and I was starving. I went over to Trent and, as he was leaning down, caught the scent. I signaled.

  “Good dog!” Trent praised. CJ put my bowl down and I raced over to eat. I was conscious of her standing over me, her hands on her hips.

  “What is it?” Trent asked CJ.

  “Max never prays for me. Just you.”

  “So?”

  I was bolting down my food. “I want to try something when he’s finished,” CJ said. I focused on my eating. When I was done I licked the bowl. “Okay, call him.”

  “Max! Come!” Trent said. I obediently went over to him and sat. There had been a time when he would call me and always give me a treat when I responded, but sadly, those days had passed for some reason.

  “Now, lean down close to him, like you’re putting the food bowl on the floor,” CJ said.

  “What are we doing?”

  “Just do it. Please.”

  Trent bent down to me. The odor was particularly strong today.

  “Pray!” CJ called.

  I obediently signaled.

  “Oh God. Is that possible?” I snapped my head up and focused on CJ. A jolt of fear had come off her, and now she had her hand to her mouth. I went to her, nuzzling her, not sure what the threat was.

  “CJ, what’s wrong? Why do you look like that?” Trent asked.

  “There’s something I want you to do for me,” CJ replied.

  “What? What is it?”

  “I want you to go to the doctor.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Please, Trent!” CJ replied, her voice breaking. “You have to do this for me!”

  Over the next year, Trent became very sick. Many times he would vomit in the bathroom, and it would remind me of how CJ used to throw up on a regular basis, which she did not do anymore. CJ seemed just as upset when Trent vomited as when she used to do it herself, and I always whimpered anxiously for both of them.

  Trent’s mother and father came to visit several times, and his sister, Carolina, and a man and some children from the wedding showed up as well, from which I concluded that Carolina now had a family. These visits were odd, though, not at all like when everyone gathered at the Farm, in that only the children seemed happy and ready to laugh and pay attention to a good dog.

  All of the hair on Trent’s head came off and I could make him laugh by licking his scalp while he lay in bed. CJ would laugh, too, but there was always an underlying sad desperation in her, a constant anxious worrying.

  “I don’t want this to be my last Christmas with my husband,” she said that winter.

  “It won’t be, honey; I promise,” Trent replied.

  I had learned from watching Duke’s rambunctious conduct with CJ how not to behave around a sick person, so I concentrated on being calm and comforting, which Trent and CJ both seemed to appreciate very much. It had been my job to keep threats at bay and I had done that, and now it was my job to try to keep the sadness away, and that required a different set of behaviors.

  I still went with CJ a few times a week to lie on the couch and let people fuss over her. They all knew me and loved me and petted me and told me that I was a good dog, and I knew it was because I would lie quietly and not jump around the room. When we left the place with the couch it always seemed to me that my girl wasn’t nearly as sick as she had been when we first started going, but I was just a dog and could have been wrong.

  One night CJ and Trent were cuddled on the couch together and I was burrowed in snug between them. Sneakers was across the room, watching us expressionlessly. I never knew what cats were thinking, or even if they were thinking.

  “I just want you to know, I’ve got plenty of insurance and investments. You’ll be okay,” Trent said.

  “But we’re not doing that. You’re going to get better. You are getting better,” CJ said. She felt angry.

  “Yes, but just in case, I want you to know it.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s not happening,” CJ insisted.

  There were a few times when Trent would be gone for days at a time and CJ would mostly be missing as well, though she always came home to walk me and feed me and always smelled like Trent, so I knew the two of them had been someplace together.

  One day it was just the two of us, CJ and me, sitting in the grass on a warm summer day. I’d run around as much as I’d wanted and was now content to sit in my girl’s lap. She stroked my head.

  “You are such a good dog,” she told me. Her fingers scratched the itchy part along my spine and I groaned in pleasure. “I know what you were doing, Max. You weren’t saying grace, were you? You were trying to tell us about Trent, trying to say you could smell his cancer. We just didn’t understand at first. Did Molly tell you that? Does she talk to you, Max? Is that how you knew? Is she an angel dog, watching over us? Are you an angel dog, too?”

  I liked hearing the name Molly spoken by CJ. I wagged.

  “We got it in time, Max. Because of you they got it and it hasn’t come back. You saved my husband. I don’t know how, but if you talk to Molly, would you tell her thank you for me?”

  I was pretty disappointed when Trent’s hair grew back on his head, because my licking his scalp always made him laugh. But things change: CJ’s hair, for example, was longer than it had ever been, a glorious tent that would fall over me when she bent over. And when Trent bent over I could no longer detect that metallic odor. When he said “Pray” to me now I looked at him in frustrated confusion. What did he want? I was even more confused when, after I sat and stared at him for a long moment after the Pray command, he and CJ both laughed and clapped and said, “Good dog!” and fed me a treat—though I had done nothing.

  It cannot be a dog’s purpose to understand what people want because it is impossible.

  The summer after Trent’s hair grew back some men came and took everything from our home. CJ spoke to them and led them through the house, so I knew it was okay, but I still barked at them out of habit. CJ put me in my crate when I barked and also put Sneakers in the cat crate, which I felt was a bit of an overreaction on CJ’s part.

  Sneakers and I went for a long car ride in the backseat of a car, still in our crates.

  At the end of the car ride the same men were there, this time carrying all of our things into a new house. What fun to explore the unfamiliar rooms! Sneakers sniffed around suspiciously, but I was rampant with joy, racing from place to place.

  “This is where we live now, Max,” Trent said. “You don’t have to live in an apartment anymore.”

  Since he was talking to me, I ran over and put my paws on his legs and he lifted me up in the air. I looked smugly down at Sneakers, who was pretending not to care. Trent was a good man. He loved CJ and me and I loved him. That night, as I dozed off, curled against my girl with Trent sleeping on the other side of the bed, I thought about how devoted Rocky had been to Trent. You can usually tell that a man is good if he has a dog who loves him.

  We didn’t ever go back home again. We were in a small house with stairs and, most delightfully, a grassy lawn in the back. Sneakers was unimpressed with the yard, but I loved it out there. It was quieter
and there were fewer food scents, but I could hear the musical sound of barking dogs and smell the plants and the rain.

  Trent left most days right after breakfast, but CJ stayed home to be with me. There was a little room she liked to sit in with a desk and a couch and soft chairs and a bed for me to lie in. Friends would come over and sit in a different room, one that had a door to the outside, and then CJ and I would go down the hall to bring the friends into CJ’s favorite room to talk. I learned never to bark at any of these people, though I always knew when they were waiting in the other room and would go to the door wagging my tail.

  “Good boy, Max,” CJ would say.

  Sometimes the people would be sad and I learned that if I jumped up into their laps a little of the sadness would go away as they petted me and cried. I loved that my girl had so many friends who came to visit.

  I was happy. A year went by, and then another. CJ was always a little sick, but gradually she seemed to be improving, getting stronger.

  We had lived in the new house for a long time when my legs began bothering me in the winter. They were stiff and sore when I woke up in the morning, slowing me down. Our walks outside became as halting and short as they had been when CJ was very sick and pushed a chair in front of her.

  Sneakers was slowing down, too. The two of us often napped on the couch at opposite ends, getting up in the middle of the day to switch places.

  “You okay, Max? Poor dog. Is the medicine doing you any good?” CJ would ask me. I could hear the concern in her voice and I would wag at my name. My purpose now was to be with my girl when she went to lie on the couch every few days, and to snuggle with her and take as many naps as possible. That’s what she needed.

  I did my best to hide my pain from her and Trent. I could feel her sharp concern whenever she could tell that my joints were flaring with a sensation very much like when Beevis tore into my ear and made it bleed.

  I no longer tore around in the backyard, barking with sheer joy. I was too tired. I still felt the joy; I just kept quiet about it.

  Sometimes I would be lying in the sun when CJ would call me and I would lift my head, but my legs wouldn’t seem to want to move. CJ would come and pick me up and hold me in her lap and I would feel her sadness, so I’d struggle against the weakness that was enfeebling me and manage to lift my head and lick her face.

  “Are you having a good day, Max? Are you in much pain?” she asked me after a particularly bad spell, when I was barely able to move for several minutes. “I think maybe it’s time. I’ve been dreading this moment, but tomorrow, I’ll take you to see the Vet. You won’t have to suffer anymore, Max. I promise.”

  I sighed. It felt good to be held by CJ. Her hands as they stroked me seemed to smooth away the pain. Trent came out and I felt him right there, too, his hand petting me.

  “How’s he doing?” Trent asked.

  “Not good at all. I came out and I thought he was gone.”

  “Such a good boy,” Trent murmured, stroking me. “You’re the best dog, Max. You took care of CJ your whole life. Now it will be my job. You can let go any time you need to. I won’t let you down. Okay? You did a good job, Max.”

  “Oh, Max,” CJ whispered. She sounded so, so sad.

  Just then, I felt a familiar sensation rising up within me, a warm and gentle blackness. Something was happening inside me, something swift and surprising. The searing agony in my joints began to withdraw. “Max?” CJ said. Her voice sounded far away.

  I was unable to move, or to see them anymore. My last thought, as I felt the rising waters float me away, was that I was glad CJ and Trent still had Sneakers to take care of them.

  Sneakers was a good cat.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I was vaguely conscious of sleeping for a long time, of awakening from a long, long nap. Eventually I opened my eyes, but everything was milky and dark.

  When my vision cleared enough for me to be able to focus on my mother and my siblings, I saw that we were all colored with splotches of brown, white, and black and all had short fur.

  I could not hear CJ’s voice, nor could I smell her. There were other people, though, many of them, often wearing long, flowing clothes and also small blankets on their heads.

  We were in a tiny room with a few rugs on the floor and light coming in from a window up close to the ceiling. My siblings—two girls and three boys—were involved in continual play, wrestling and, as we got older, merrily chasing each other. I tried to ignore them to concentrate on sitting in front of the door to watch for CJ, but the fun was just too infectious.

  For the first time it occurred to me to wonder if any of them had experienced other lives and had people they, too, needed to find, but they sure didn’t act like it. I was the only puppy who seemed to have any concerns at all beyond playing, playing, playing.

  The people who came to see us were all women. I soon learned to identify their smells and discern that though their garments were all the same, there were six separate people, all of them older than CJ but younger than Hannah. The women delighted in us, coming in to laugh as the puppies jumped on them and tugged on their long robes. They picked me up and kissed me, but one of them in particular paid more attention to me than the other women did. “This is the one,” she would say. “See how calm he is?”

  “There’s no such thing as a calm beagle,” one woman responded to this.

  “Oh, Margaret, a puppy isn’t going to work out,” said another. “I know they’re cute, but they’re too full of energy. We should get another mature dog like Oscar was.”

  The woman holding me was, I soon realized after hearing her name a number of times, called Margaret.

  “You weren’t here when we got Oscar, Jane,” Margaret said. “We had several false starts, and when we finally found Oscar he was with us such a short time before he passed. I think training a puppy from the start will give us many years.”

  “But not a beagle,” the first woman said. “A beagle is too hyper. That’s why I didn’t want to foster a pregnant beagle in the first place.”

  I wondered which one of the women was named Beagle.

  I could tell from the heaviness in my bones and muscles that I was destined to be a bigger dog than I had been as Max. I felt a sense of relief that I wouldn’t need to devote so much energy to proving to dogs and people that inside I was a big dog who could protect my girl. When the woman set me down I went over and jumped on one of my sisters—I was already larger than she was, and I enjoyed being able to dominate her with my size rather than my attitude.

  Soon after we had started eating mushy food out of a communal bowl, we were led outside into a grassy area that was fenced in. It was spring and the air was warm and fragrant with flowers and new grass. I could smell that we were in a humid climate with rains frequent enough to support many species of trees and bushes. My siblings thought the yard was pretty much the most wonderful place imaginable and reacted every morning to being let out into it by racing around in circles. I thought it was silly but generally joined in the fray because it was fun.

  I wondered when CJ would come get me. That had to be why I was a puppy again. Our fates were inextricably linked, so if I was reborn it must be that my girl still needed me.

  One day a family entered the yard—two little girls and a man and a woman—led by one of the six women who took care of us. I knew what their presence meant. The puppies all ran over to play with them, but I hung back, though when one of the little girls picked me up I couldn’t resist kissing her giggling face.

  “This one, Daddy. This is the one I want for my birthday,” the little girl said. She carried me over to her father.

  “Actually, one of the nuns has already spoken for that one,” the woman said. “He’s going to have a job. We hope, anyway.”

  The little girl dropped me to the ground. I gazed up at her, wagging. She was older than when CJ was called Clarity but younger than when Rocky and I were taken home by Trent and CJ—I had never known my girl at this par
ticular age. When the little girl scooped up one of my brothers, I was oddly disappointed. I would have enjoyed playing with her some more.

  In rapid succession, my siblings went home with other people, until soon I was the only dog left to be with my mother, who was named Sadie. The two of us, my mother and I, were out in the yard taking a nap when several of the women came out to see us. I picked up a small rubber bone and carried it over to the women, hoping one of them would want it and would chase me.

  “You’ve been such a good dog, Sadie, such a good mother,” Margaret said.

  I tossed the rubber bone and pounced on it so they would call me a good dog, too.

  “You’re going to love your new home,” another woman said.

  A third woman picked me up and held me nose-to-nose with my mother. We sniffed each other, a bit disconcerted by the awkward and unnatural situation.

  “Say bye-bye to your puppy, Sadie!”

  The woman snapped a leash onto Sadie’s collar and led her away. Margaret held me so I couldn’t follow my mother—clearly, something was going on.

  “I’m going to call you Toby, okay? Toby, you’re a good dog, Toby. Toby.” Margaret crooned to me. “Your name is Toby.”

  It occurred to me that my name must be Toby. I was stunned—Toby had been my very first name, long, long ago. Margaret obviously knew that.

  Humans know everything, not just how to take car rides or where to find bacon but also when dogs are good or bad and where dogs should sleep and what toys they should play with. Still, I was astounded to hear Margaret call me Toby. I’d always marked every new life with a new name.

  What did it mean that I was Toby again? Did it mean it was all starting over, that I would next be named Bailey?

  Sadie did not come back, and gradually I came to understand that this place full of women draped in blankets was my new home—a home like none I’d ever been in. For the most part, I lived in the fenced-in area, though at night I was brought in and put in the room where I had been born. I wasn’t lonely, though—throughout the day women would come out to see me, often tossing a rubber ball or pulling on a toy with me. I soon learned to recognize most of them by smell, even though their hands all were cloaked in similar scents.