“My name is Bailey. I have had many names and many lives, but Bailey is what I am called now. It is a good name. I am a good dog.”

Bailey has been here before, but it seems that a dog’s work is never done. Now Bailey has a new mission. His human friend, Ethan, has told him he must go back to do something very important. And, just like that, Bailey is a puppy again. After a somewhat rough start, he lands in a shelter where he meets his canine soul mate, Lacey. But the two dogs are adopted by different families.

Bailey is renamed Cooper and sent to live with Chase Dad and his two sons on a farm. While he loves it on the farm, he misses Lacey. Well, dogs have a way of finding each other. Their extraordinary sense of smell and hearing gives them advantages we don’t have. Cooper and Lacey are soul mates, after all. Something as trivial as distance can’t keep them apart. They find each other time and time again. And maybe, just maybe, they are meant to connect their humans, too.

"A DOG’S PROMISE may look like an ordinary book, but it is far from it. What lies between its covers is a delightful story of incredible insight, happiness, anguish, love and, yes, even sadness."

Chase Dad’s sons have a somewhat rocky relationship, made worse by the introduction of a lovely young woman, Wenling. More troubling, Chase Dad has formed a grudge against Wenling’s father over some business thing. But Wenling ends up at the farm often because Lacey, her dog, keeps running off to meet Cooper. Lacey and Cooper make every effort to show their people how to live happily, but inexplicably humans tend to make their days very complicated. They seem to overlook all of the wonders the world holds for them, finding the paths to unhappiness instead. Why won’t they enjoy the pleasures offered to them? It takes more than one reincarnation for Bailey/Cooper to make his family realize where real value resides. But his mission is clear.

A DOG’S PROMISE may look like an ordinary book, but it is far from it. What lies between its covers is a delightful story of incredible insight, happiness, anguish, love and, yes, even sadness. But the sadness is accompanied by amazing promise of better things to come. Narrated by Bailey in all of his incarnations, W. Bruce Cameron’s novel takes us inside this good dog’s head, letting us sense how our pets might perceive us and all of their surroundings. Bailey has a sweet, simple approach to life, an uncomplicated attitude that he wants to impart to all of us. He relishes small pleasures, and experiences great joy and deep sadness. And he takes it all in stride. Even in pain, he knows how to handle what the future holds for him. He doesn’t understand why people don’t focus on him when he’s there, because, after all, there’s a dog in the room! Dogs are there to make us happy.

You can’t read A DOG’S PROMISE and come away without viewing your own dog a little differently. And loving him just a bit more. The whole world needs to read this book, if for no other reason than to just feel the pleasure of a rapidly wagging tail aimed its way. And a big sloppy kiss on its cheek. We all can learn a lot from Bailey.