When I see Fate run, I think of Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild, in my humble opinion, far and away the best dog book ever written. It is sometimes, harsh, sometimes brutal, always realistic, a counterpoint to the rabid emotionalizing of dogs that has robbed their animalness and their connection to nature. Many people actually believe dogs can and should never be left alone.

I can’t imagine Buck every worrying about that. The Call Of The Wild has helped me to see the wolf in dogs, especially in my border collie Rose, and sometimes, in a different way, in Fate. Fate was born to run wild, to sail through the woods, over streams, through bushes, she sometimes leaves the ground when she circles the sheep across the meadow.

This is an inspiration for me, a call to life, something that lifts me up and gets me excited about life. London’t book is the literary opposite of the gooey Rainbow Bridge, a sad testament to how far from their destiny dogs have come.

London gave dogs their independence, loyalty, adaptability and their very visceral connection to nature and survival. The Rainbow Bridge takes all of that mystique away, and reduces dogs to slobbering and dependent creatures, with no real lives of their own.

The Call Of The Wild is all but forgotten, the paperback sells for $1.50 on Amazon, yet it is the book to read to understand the great bond that can exist between people and animals, and the wild part of every dog. Various Rainbow Bridge books sell for 10 times that much.

There is something joyous and also sad about the lives of dogs, they do not live as long as we do, and to love them is to know grief and loss. London captured that. In our time, some people are stunned to learn that dogs ever die, grieving for years and spending thousands of dollars to keep dogs alive beyond their time.

I don’t ever want to lose my appreciation for the true history of dogs, of their wildness and place in the natural world.

Books reveal where we are as a culture, and so do dogs. I love to see Fate run, there is something so liberating and free about it.