e absolutely loved this book, and were so happy to be able to meet W. Bruce Cameron at the Best Friends National Conference over the summer, which is where we got a copy of A Dog’s Way Home. Above, our very dog-like cat, Rhea, who is always at my feet 🙂
This is a wonderful, very well-told story. And, even though a dog – Bella – is the protagonist, there are lots of cats! Lots of cats. Bella is separated from her mother early on and is taken in by a group of feral community cats who live in a building that is on the verge of being demolished. A cat who’s just had kittens takes Bella in as one of her own. Bella always thinks of her as Mother Cat, and the kittens as her siblings. A young med school student who cares for the community cats, Lucas, finds Bella and takes her in. Lucas lives with his mother, an Army veteran recovering from PTSD.
Unfortunately, Lucas lives in Denver and Denver has a pit bull ban. One of the things this book does so well is show the odious and irrational nature of such a law, especially given that there is no official recognition of pit bull as a breed. That gives power-hungry animal control officers the ability to declare any dog they don’t like a pit bull.
Which is exactly what happens here. Lucas has had run-ins with one such local animal control officer over his insistence on getting the community cats out of the condemned building before it is bulldozed. He works hard with a local animal rescue to do that, but it takes time and the landowner is eager to demolish the building regardless of whether cats are inside. The landowner threatens Lucas with taking Bella away if Lucas doesn’t leave him to his destruction.
As you can see, the dog on the cover of the book looks nothing like a pit bull – and many of the animal control officers in the book question whether Bella is a pit bull. But the landowner is friends with one animal control officer, and that’s all it takes – an officer deeming a dog a pit bull. Bella is banished from town, with Lucas promising he will find a home outside of Denver and will come get her from the foster as soon as possible.
But Bella doesn’t understand since she is a dog. She only knows that she has been separated from her human. So once she sees a means of escape from her new foster, she traces Lucas’s scent back home. The story is her journey, which is quite treacherous given that she is several hundred miles away and there are mountains and wild animals and horrid weather now separating him from home.
Along the way, Bella meets many colorful characters – most of them good, but a few rotten apples. My favorite of the characters is Big Kitten – another cat! Big Kitten is a mountain lion cub who is orphaned by trophy hunters who illegally shoot her mother. Bella mothers Big Kitten the way Mommy Cat mothered her and for a time they pal around together, hunting and sharing food. You know Bella will eventually make her way back to Lucas and his mother but you just don’t know how. There are so many twists and turns you remain on the edge of your seat until the last page!
There’s so much I left out. There are so many memorable characters and scenes. Every animal lover has to read this book. It’s just packed with gems! The movie comes out early next year and will star Ashley Judd and Edward James Olmos. I really can’t wait!
Another pic of me meeting Cameron at that wonderful conference 😀
