My wonderful bulldog, Don Diego, appeared in an illustration for a book, entitled The Puppy Prophet.* The book by David Cary Lane was illustrated by Patrick Atkins, my younger daughter’s partner. It was one of my most interesting Christmas presents. Along with the book came an illustration by Patrick, as he is an illustrator, which I’ll post on this blog before hanging it on my wall. Don Diego is in the upper right – a white dog with a brown spot.

The book resonated with me for another reason. While growing up, I discovered Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, originally published in 1923 – over two decades before I was born. In this classic, an old sage, Almustafa, after waiting twelve years for his ship to take him from the city of Orphalese, offered his advice to all the people who came to greet him and say goodbye. He answered their questions one by one on such timeless topics such as giving, friendship, good and evil, and death, before parting. As a child, I kept reading and rereading this book, looking for advice I understood (and agreed with)! I’ve always tried to interest my family in Gibran – his work is accessible and touching.

In an analogous way, in The Puppy Prophet, an old stray dog, called Dumpster Daisy, whose owner had since died, sat in the park, realizing that her “time had come”. The other dogs gathered around her, asking questions to tap her wisdom before she left them. A pug asked her: “Why does the peanut butter always run out?” An Akita asked if she could find “peace”. Each chapter is another dog with sometimes funny and sometimes poignant questions for Daisy, but with the last chapter entitled “Daisy”. In the end, after all the other dogs had “scattered, following their humans back to their homes”. Dumpster Daisy, sat at the base of the tree, seen in the illustration, and “drifted into the darkness herself, only to be seen …”.

*David Cary Lane (2023), The Puppy Prophet, illustrated by Patrick Atkins. Amazon Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/Puppy-Prophet-David-Cary-Lane/dp/B0CLHRNMQC