40 Fun Facts About Bailey's Story

How does Ethan's mother free the overheating pup from a parked truck before he is named Bailey?

She breaks a window to reach the pup, who had been shut in the cab for hours while the driver sat in a bar. She then takes him home to her young son, Ethan.

In the publisher's description of Bailey's Story, which chore does Bailey do only when Mom isn't watching?

Licking dishes clean is how Bailey thinks he tidies up after his boy. He counts it as part of his purpose, alongside playing with Ethan and exploring the Farm each summer.

Bailey becomes a hero late in Bailey's Story by saving Ethan's family from which emergency?

A house fire, started by an angry neighbor boy after an argument with Ethan, is the danger Bailey saves the family from. Ethan's life is dramatically changed by that night.

What breed of dog is Bailey, the pet who grows up beside a boy named Ethan in Bailey's Story?

Golden Retriever Bailey describes his world mostly through scents, sounds and tastes, a choice the author made so the dog's voice would feel real.

Which comic actor voices Bailey's thoughts in the 2017 film A Dog's Purpose, playing the dog in every one of his lives?

Josh Gad, already famous as the voice of Olaf in Frozen, speaks for the dog in all of his bodies, so one voice ties the film's separate lives together.

Which troubled neighbor boy tries to keep Bailey for his own in Chapter 6 of Bailey's Story?

Todd tries to keep Bailey for himself, an early warning about a boy who grows more dangerous with time. Years later his anger at Ethan puts the whole family at risk.

Which girl who lives down the road from the Farm grows close to Ethan with Bailey's help in Bailey's Story?

Hannah becomes Ethan's sweetheart, and Bailey likes to squeeze in between the two of them on the porch, which makes them both laugh.

In what kind of place is Bailey born before he escapes and is rescued by Ethan's family in Bailey's Story?

A puppy mill is where Bailey starts life, though he never realizes it himself. Such places breed dogs for profit with little regard for their health and safety.

Which bestselling author adapted Bailey's Story for young readers from his own novel A Dog's Purpose?

W. Bruce Cameron reworked part of his adult bestseller into this shorter illustrated book, adding a discussion and activity guide at the back for families and classrooms.

Which injury ends Ethan's promising athletic career in A Dog's Purpose, the novel behind Bailey's Story?

A damaged leg, an injury that proves permanent, costs Ethan his future in sports. Bailey's job afterwards is to help his boy remember what he can still do.

Whose farm, known simply as the Farm, do Ethan and Bailey explore every summer in Bailey's Story?

His grandparents' farm gives Ethan and Bailey freedoms they never have at home, and it is where the pair go back to after Ethan's accident.

Left alone at the Farm for the first time in Bailey's Story, Ethan rides out for a picnic on whom?

Flare carries Ethan off on the picnic ride in Chapter 12, a choice that lands the boy in trouble until Bailey helps him out of it.

What does Ethan call the homemade toy he builds for Bailey as a cross between a frisbee, a boomerang and a baseball?

The flip is Ethan's own invention, begun after Bailey watches a dog in town catch a plastic disk. Bailey can't catch the first throws, and Ethan gets discouraged.

Which sport does teenage Ethan play so well that college scouts come to watch, with Bailey looking on?

Football is Ethan's game, and on the night the scouts come Bailey sits with Ethan's sweetheart while he plays.

Which narrative point of view is used throughout Bailey's Story?

First person narration lets Bailey report things a human storyteller might not notice, while leaving him puzzled by school, doors and other human habits.

In A Dog's Purpose, how does the pup who becomes Bailey escape the kennel where he was born?

He opens the gate by climbing onto a table and biting the knob, then heads up the road, where a passing truck driver picks him up.

In A Dog's Purpose, what name does an elderly Ethan give the stray Labrador who is really Bailey reborn?

Buddy reaches the Farm by trailing a scent after being abandoned on a country road. Ethan recognises him as Bailey only at the very end of his own life.

In A Dog's Purpose, what was the dog called in his first life as a feral pup, before he became Bailey?

Toby is the name a gentle old woman gives the wild pup when he lands in her yard full of abandoned dogs. The dog is given the same name again in his final life in the sequel.

In A Dog's Purpose, Bailey is reborn as a female German Shepherd working with the police under which name?

Ellie is trained for search and rescue, and the dog is startled to find he has come back as a girl. Hers was the first of these lives to be retold for young readers.

Which 2012 sequel follows Bailey's spirit in a new body as he watches over a girl called CJ?

A Dog's Journey opens on the Farm, where the dog decides that guarding a curious little girl is his new purpose and saves her from drowning. It reached cinemas in 2019.

Which Hollywood veteran plays the grown-up Ethan, by then running the old family farm, in the 2017 film A Dog's Purpose?

Dennis Quaid plays Ethan as a farmer who fails to recognise his old dog at first and takes him to a shelter. He returned to the role in the 2019 sequel.

Which Riverdale star first appeared on the big screen as the teenage Ethan in the 2017 film A Dog's Purpose?

KJ Apa's first film reached US cinemas within a day of Riverdale's television premiere, giving the New Zealander two debuts in a single week.

Which director, who once shot most of ABBA's music videos, made the 2017 film A Dog's Purpose?

Lasse Hallström first won international attention with a 1985 film called My Life as a Dog, three decades before he brought Bailey's tale to the screen.

Which ABC sitcom grew out of a humor book about fatherhood by the author of Bailey's Story?

8 Simple Rules began as his advice book about dating his teenage daughter, written years before he turned to dog stories. The sitcom ran from 2002 to 2005.

The author of Bailey's Story was born in the town of Petoskey in which US state?

Michigan is also where he set the family farm in A Dog's Purpose, so Bailey's happiest summers unfold in the author's home state.

Which book in the same series as Bailey's tale follows a cancer-sniffing poodle mix and her lonely girl, CJ?

Molly's Story begins in the home of a woman who fosters strays, and its heroine's nose later helps an art teacher catch her illness early.

Which other novel by the author of Bailey's Story became a 2019 film with Bryce Dallas Howard voicing the dog Bella?

A Dog's Way Home follows Bella on a trek of more than 400 miles back to her owner, with a dog actor named Shelby playing her on screen.

In the 2017 film A Dog's Purpose, Bailey's spirit returns as Tino, a college student's pet of which breed?

Corgi Tino falls for a dog named Roxy, which is how his lonely owner Maya meets Roxy's owner, the classmate she goes on to marry.

Which studio bought the film rights to A Dog's Purpose, the bestseller that Bailey's Story is adapted from?

DreamWorks bought the rights soon after the novel was published in 2010, but the finished film was moved to the Amblin banner and released by Universal.

Which subtitle did the 2010 first edition of A Dog's Purpose carry?

A Novel for Humans is a joke that lands because the tale is told by a dog. The editions for young readers are named after the dogs themselves instead.

Bailey's Story belongs to which series of illustrated young-reader novels, each named after a different dog?

Puppy Tales began in 2015 with a search-and-rescue dog's book, and Bailey's volume followed a year later.

In A Dog's Purpose, what does the truck driver who picks up the runaway pup call him before he is Bailey?

Fella is all the driver calls the pup before leaving him shut in the cab outside a bar for hours. His lasting name comes later, in a new home.

What baked treat fills the basket carried by the girl who walks up while Ethan tests his homemade toy for Bailey?

Brownies, and how good they smell, are what Bailey registers about the visitor. She goes on to become Ethan's sweetheart.

Which actress plays Ethan's supportive teenage sweetheart, a girl he meets at a fair, in the 2017 film A Dog's Purpose?

Britt Robertson plays the girl whose romance with Ethan ends when, depressed after his injury, he breaks up with her before leaving for college.

Which actress plays Ethan's grown-up sweetheart, by then a widow, in the 2017 film A Dog's Purpose?

Peggy Lipton, once a star of The Mod Squad, made this her final film; her character is steered back to Ethan by the dog, and the two marry.

Which Hollywood star was in talks in 2015 to voice Bailey's thoughts on film, a part he never performed?

Bradley Cooper was in negotiations for the part in October 2015, but by the time the film opened another actor's voice was speaking for the dog.

Which artist drew the black-and-white illustrations that appear throughout the pages of Bailey's Story?

Richard Cowdrey drew pictures that are among the additions made for young readers, along with a discussion and activity guide at the back of the book.

In the 2017 film A Dog's Purpose, which boyhood nickname later proves to Ethan that his old pet Bailey is back?

Boss Dog is a phrase only the two of them shared, so when the stray answers to it, Ethan digs out Bailey's rusty old collar and puts it back on him.

In A Dog's Purpose, what does the dog call the gentle old woman who runs the Yard in the life before Bailey's?

Senora shelters dozens of abandoned dogs until officials close the place over poor sanitation and welfare conditions, which ends that first life.

Which writer, married to the author of Bailey's Story, shares screenplay credit with him on the film A Dog's Purpose?

Cathryn Michon also co-wrote the 2019 sequel with her husband, and the couple adapted the trek of a lost dog named Bella for the screen too.