Summary Of A Dog's Purpose By Bruce Cameron

Bruce Cameron’s novel A Dog’s Purpose is a novel about a dog that goes through multiple lives while trying to find his purpose. The book offers insight into human behavior by showcasing that a human’s actions that they make now will affect them later on. The dog in this novel goes by a variety of names due to the fact that he dies and is reborn into a different dog’s body several times. Each owner gives him a new name. In the dog’s first life the his name is Toby. By telling the story in Toby’s point of view, the author conveys that people’s choices now will affect them later on in life.
Cameron conveys that human’s actions will affect them later on through the main character, Toby. Toby’s is in his second life and his name is currently Bailey. Bailey’s owner, Ethan, likes to dive into a lake. At one moment in the novel Ethan jumps

Ethan’s parents fight often. After Ethan’s house burns down his family must live in an apartment. While living in the apartment Bailey describes Ethan’s dad by saying, “He yelled at Mom a lot more there than t the house”(158). There is a significant amount of stress in Ethan’s families life after the fire. Due to the stress, Ethan’s parents relationship starts to fade. As the story continues their relationship is not mentioned again until Bailey sees Ethan’s mom “Pull something off her finger, it wasn’t food and was made of metal, a small round thing that she threw into the water, where is slipped beneath the surface with a tiny plop”(174). Ethan’s parents relationship has ended at this point in the story. His mom physically removes her ring, which the reader sees as a way to erase the bond between her and her husband. Cameron uses Ethan’s parents to convey the message that how you treat people now and your actions now, could affect how your life folds out later