Bailey's Story
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40 free Bailey's Story trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Bailey's Story is the young readers' edition of one of the best-loved dog tales of recent years. It follows a rescued pup and a boy named Ethan from their first meeting through long summers on the Farm and into Ethan's teenage years, all seen through the dog's eyes and nose. This quiz covers what readers are asked about most: how Bailey finds his family, the friends and troublemakers in the neighborhood, the night he proves what he is for, and what happens afterwards. It also takes in the author, the companion books, the adult bestseller A Dog's Purpose and its film. It suits students finishing the book for class, families reading it together, and anyone who wants to check how much of Bailey's world has stuck. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How does Ethan's mother free the overheating pup from a parked truck before he is named Bailey?
She breaks a window
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.
Q 02In the publisher's description of Bailey's Story, which chore does Bailey do only when Mom isn't watching?
Licking dishes clean
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.
Q 03Bailey becomes a hero late in Bailey's Story by saving Ethan's family from which emergency?
A house fire
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.
Q 04What breed of dog is Bailey, the pet who grows up beside a boy named Ethan in Bailey's Story?
Golden Retriever
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.
Q 05Which 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
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.
Q 06Which troubled neighbor boy tries to keep Bailey for his own in Chapter 6 of Bailey's Story?
Todd
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.
Q 07Which girl who lives down the road from the Farm grows close to Ethan with Bailey's help in Bailey's Story?
Hannah
Hannah becomes Ethan's sweetheart, and Bailey likes to squeeze in between the two of them on the porch, which makes them both laugh.
Q 08In what kind of place is Bailey born before he escapes and is rescued by Ethan's family in Bailey's Story?
A puppy mill
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.
Q 09Which bestselling author adapted Bailey's Story for young readers from his own novel A Dog's Purpose?
W. Bruce Cameron
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.
Q 10Which injury ends Ethan's promising athletic career in A Dog's Purpose, the novel behind Bailey's Story?
A damaged leg
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.
Q 11Whose farm, known simply as the Farm, do Ethan and Bailey explore every summer in Bailey's Story?
His grandparents'
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.
Q 12Left alone at the Farm for the first time in Bailey's Story, Ethan rides out for a picnic on whom?
Flare
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.
Q 13What does Ethan call the homemade toy he builds for Bailey as a cross between a frisbee, a boomerang and a baseball?
The flip
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.
Q 21Which Hollywood veteran plays the grown-up Ethan, by then running the old family farm, in the 2017 film A Dog's Purpose?
Dennis Quaid
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.
Q 22Which Riverdale star first appeared on the big screen as the teenage Ethan in the 2017 film A Dog's Purpose?
KJ Apa
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.
Q 23Which director, who once shot most of ABBA's music videos, made the 2017 film A Dog's Purpose?
Lasse Hallström
Q 14Which sport does teenage Ethan play so well that college scouts come to watch, with Bailey looking on?
Football
Football is Ethan's game, and on the night the scouts come Bailey sits with Ethan's sweetheart while he plays.
Q 15Which narrative point of view is used throughout Bailey's Story?
First person
First person narration lets Bailey report things a human storyteller might not notice, while leaving him puzzled by school, doors and other human habits.
Q 16In A Dog's Purpose, how does the pup who becomes Bailey escape the kennel where he was born?
He opens the gate
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.
Q 17In A Dog's Purpose, what name does an elderly Ethan give the stray Labrador who is really Bailey reborn?
Buddy
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.
Q 18In A Dog's Purpose, what was the dog called in his first life as a feral pup, before he became Bailey?
Toby
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.
Q 19In A Dog's Purpose, Bailey is reborn as a female German Shepherd working with the police under which name?
Ellie
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.
Q 20Which 2012 sequel follows Bailey's spirit in a new body as he watches over a girl called CJ?
A Dog's Journey
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.
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.
Q 24Which ABC sitcom grew out of a humor book about fatherhood by the author of Bailey's Story?
8 Simple Rules
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.
Q 25The author of Bailey's Story was born in the town of Petoskey in which US state?
Michigan
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.
Q 26Which book in the same series as Bailey's tale follows a cancer-sniffing poodle mix and her lonely girl, CJ?
Molly's Story
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.
Q 27Which 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
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.
Q 28In the 2017 film A Dog's Purpose, Bailey's spirit returns as Tino, a college student's pet of which breed?
Corgi
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.
Q 29Which studio bought the film rights to A Dog's Purpose, the bestseller that Bailey's Story is adapted from?
DreamWorks
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.
Q 30Which subtitle did the 2010 first edition of A Dog's Purpose carry?
A Novel for Humans
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.