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50 pages 1 hour read

W. Bruce Cameron

A Dog's Purpose

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2010

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Chapters 18-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 18 Summary

Bailey has been born again, this time to a private person who owns both his mother and father. After a short time, Bailey becomes aware that he is a girl and is shocked and worried about what Ethan might think. A man comes and runs the puppies through a few tests. Bailey does the best, so the man, Jakob, takes Bailey home and renames him Elleya, but calls him Ellie.

Ellie recognizes that Jakob is a policeman. She also senses profound sadness in Jakob. Ellie believes the reason Jakob doesn’t show her affection the same way Ethan did is because of this sadness. Jakob begins working with Ellie, teaching her commands like “find” and “show.” A man named Wally works with them, often hiding from Ellie and making her come find him. This work gives Ellie purpose and provides something to think about other than grief for Ethan’s absence. Jakob also teaches Ellie how to slide down slides and go in tight spaces, as well as to not react to the sound of gunfire. He begins taking Ellie to a building where other police personnel and dogs are. One day, Jakob becomes excited, talks into an object on his shoulder, and loads Ellie into his truck.

Chapter 19 Summary

Jakob takes Ellie to a building where people are standing outside. He gives Ellie some clothing that smells almost like Grandma and tells her to find. Ellie sniffs the air and begins walking away from the building, quickly finding a tissue that smells like the shirt. She shows Jakob and is told to find again. Ellie traces the scent through a gate and into a play yard where an older woman is sitting on a swing. Jakob praises Ellie and plays with her for a few minutes as a reward. Ellie realizes that finding people is her new purpose. Over time, Jakob and Ellie go to search for people.

Jakob takes Ellie to a mall where a woman is crying. He gives Ellie a toy to sniff and tells her to find. Ellie immediately finds the scent and follows it to the parking lot; she can tell by the end of the scent that the child she’s trying to find got into a car. Jakob puts Ellie in his truck, and they begin driving around. He orders Ellie to find again even though they are driving, but Ellie surprises them both by catching the scent and directing him in the right direction. They stop at the end of a fire road, and Jakob lets Ellie out of the truck and directs her to find.

Chapter 20 Summary

Ellie and Jakob track the child, a girl, to a building where a man is attempting to break open a door. The man runs away. Jakob and Ellie stay with the girl until the police arrive. One of the policemen takes Jakob and Ellie to track down the runaway man. When they catch up with the man, Jakob approaches and the man shoots him. Ellie attacks the man, subduing him. The other policeman orders Ellie back. The man tricks the policeman into looking away and lunges for his gun. The policeman shoots and kills the man. Ellie goes to Jakob, aware of how weak he is. Jakob is taken away on a helicopter and Ellie is taken back to the work building, where she lives in the yard for several weeks. A woman named Maya comes to visit Ellie and her friend, Amy. From their conversation, it appears that Maya is to be Ellie’s new handler.

Chapter 21 Summary

Ellie is not thrilled when Maya takes her to her home because she owns three cats: Stella, Tinkerbell, and Emmet. The next day, Ellie and Maya begin working with Wally and Belinda just like Ellie once did with Jakob. Maya and Ellie work almost every day and often go on runs. Maya fears she and Ellie will not be certified because of her own inability to keep up with Ellie during a search (due to being overweight). One day, Maya takes Ellie to the beach, and they run hard. The next day, Maya is too tired to work. That night, Maya calls Ellie to her while she soaks in a bath, and Ellie is aware of her deep sadness. For this reason, Ellie climbs into the bath with Maya.

Chapter 22 Summary

Maya takes Ellie to visit Jakob at his apartment. Ellie is thrilled to be there but torn over her loyalty to Jakob and her loyalty to Maya. She inspects the apartment while Maya and Jakob talk, unaware that Jakob is using his experience recovering from his gunshot wound while his wife suffered from terminal cancer to encourage Maya not to give up. Maya takes Ellie on more runs, pushing herself so hard one day that she can’t get out of her car afterward. A neighbor named Al comes over to check on her. Not long after, Maya and Ellie get their certification. Maya attends a celebration at her mother’s house, and Al attends. Afterward, Al becomes a regular at Maya’s house.

Maya and Ellie take a flight and then a helicopter to a place where buildings have collapsed and there is a lot of smoke. Maya instructs Ellie to find as they go from building to building. Each person Ellie finds is dead, and this makes her despondent. For this reason, Maya arranges for her colleague, Vernon, to hide so Ellie can find a living person. This cheers Ellie up, and she continues working. Hours later, Ellie finds a body in a building where chemicals have spilled. Maya rewards Ellie and tries to move on, but Ellie senses another target and this person is alive.

Chapter 23 Summary

Maya tries multiple times to get Ellie to leave the building with the chemical spill, but the dog refuses. Vernon offers to hide again, so Maya lets Ellie off the leash so she can find him. Instead, Ellie digs into the building and finds a woman in a small opening. While doing this, Ellie gets some of the chemical on her snout. Ellie sits with the woman until rescue comes. When Maya sees Ellie, she immediately has the firemen wash her snout with water. Maya and Ellie fly home and visit a man in the clean place with the metal table (the veterinarian’s), who puts cream on Ellie’s snout. At home, Tinkerbell begins to show Ellie uncommon affection. Ellie’s snout heals, and Maya takes her back to the work building. Maya instructs Ellie to find Wally, but Ellie struggles to catch his scent. When this continues over the next few days, Ellie loses her certification. Maya adopts Ellie, and a short time later, Al asks Maya to marry him.

Chapter 24 Summary

Ellie gets to be a part of Al and Maya’s wedding ceremony, and then Al and Maya move Ellie and the cats into a new house, settling into a quiet routine. After a time, Maya begins taking Ellie to “school” where Maya talks and then children pet Ellie. Sometimes school means small children, and sometimes it means older people. They do this on a regular basis. One day, they go to what Maya calls a “class” and meet a young girl named Alyssa. When Alyssa’s parents arrive, Ellie is thrilled to see that Alyssa’s father is Jakob. Ellie immediately senses that Jakob is happy now, his deep sadness gone.

As time passes, Stella and Emmet die, causing Maya sadness. Tinkerbell continues to be surprisingly attached to Ellie. At the same time, Ellie is beginning to tire easily and thinks about Ethan and the farm more and more. One day, Ellie and Maya are in another classroom when a couple of adults come in to say a child has gone missing in a sudden thunderstorm. Although Ellie hasn’t worked in a while, she is happy to assist Maya in finding the child. Ellie sniffs a backpack from which she is able to isolate the child, Geoffrey’s, scent. She tracks Geoffrey to a fence. Ellie, Maya, and a policeman follow the scent to a sewer where the child is clinging to the concrete wall.

Chapter 25 Summary

The policeman cuts the iron plate above Geoffrey, causing mud to fall on his face. When Geoffrey goes to wipe the mud away, he is washed into the rush of water. Ellie jumps in after Geoffrey and is able to snag his sweatshirt’s hood. She struggles to find a way to take Geoffrey to safety and is relieved when they are washed into open water. More policemen are there, and they pull Ellie and Geoffrey out of the water. Maya arrives after Geoffrey is taken away and immediately takes Ellie to the clean place with the metal table (the veterinarian’s). A few days later, Ellie and Maya go in front of a crowd, and Ellie is given a strange collar (a medal).

Maya and Al have a baby named Gabriella. Maya begins spending more time with Gabriella, so Ellie spends most of her time with Al. This is why Al is the first to notice when Ellie begins to struggle to hold her bowels and walk outside. One afternoon, a neighbor watches over Gabriella, and Ellie goes to the clean place with the metal table (the veterinarian’s) with Al and Maya. Ellie believes she has been a good dog and that this time, she won’t come back to life because she has fulfilled her purpose. She is at peace when she dies.

Chapters 19-25 Analysis

The lessons Bailey learned in his past two lives help him make an impression on Jakob, who trains him to be a search-and-rescue dog. Bailey realizes he is now a girl, but gender does nothing to change Bailey, now Ellie’s, behavior. Ellie continues to be an intelligent and loyal dog. Although Ellie remembers her past and misses Ethan, she uses the lessons Ethan taught her to be the best search-and-rescue dog she can be.

Jakob is not an affectionate owner and is filled with a sadness that Ellie doesn’t understand. Again, Ellie is an unreliable narrator, but her observations allow the reader to deduce that Jakob’s wife died of cancer and left him grieving. Yet, spending time with Jakob during this time of grief and then meeting Jakob later after he has started a new family and worked through his grief teaches Ellie another lesson that allows her to help Ethan in her next life.

Bailey first learned rescue when he was living with Ethan. As Ellie, this lesson is taken to the next step as Jakob trains Ellie to find missing people. Ellie successfully finds and rescues many people, including a child kidnapped by an antagonist not unlike Todd. She remembers Todd, and this helps her understand that some humans are bad enough to elicit an attack (especially in defense of another). With this lesson, Ellie is able to protect a policeman from the kidnapper’s gun and later saves a child, Geoffrey, from rushing waters during a storm.

Ellie has had to deal with cats in her last life as well as this one. The relationship has been contentious, as Ellie doesn’t fully understand the behavior of a cat. In this life, however, one of the cats who lives with Maya, Tinkerbell, uses Ellie’s brief convalescence after she is burned by acid to insinuate her way into Ellie’s personal space. While Ellie complains about Tinkerbell’s actions, her patience with the cat shows another side of her personality. Ellie has already shown compassion for humans, but the compassion she shows this cat is both humorous and somewhat reluctant and clearly becomes a bond that Ellie doesn’t begrudge.

The theme of Interpersonal Relationships and How a Dog Might Learn From Them is visited again not only when Ellie observes Jakob’s new family but also with Maya’s blossoming relationship with her neighbor Al. While Ellie’s understanding of this relationship is minimal, it is important because it once again underscores the importance of interpersonal relationships between humans. This foreshadows Ellie realizing that Ethan needs to rekindle his relationship with Hannah in order to work through his sadness.

Purpose in Life and How It Dictates Certain Actions also plays an important role, as Ellie comes to the conclusion that she’s been a good dog because of all her rescues with both Jakob and Maya. Ellie believes she has fulfilled her purpose and will not have to live another life. This theme also overlaps with the theme of Death as Passage to the Next Life because Ellie’s thoughts come around the time she has grown old and prepares to die. Like her last death, Ellie is surrounded by humans who love her when she is put down at the veterinarian’s. However, Ellie’s understanding of the moment has grown, and she goes into it with a new maturity that makes the experience slightly different than her death as Bailey.

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By W. Bruce Cameron