The Dog, Ray

by Linda Coggin

A girl, a dog, a boy, a journey

'When my death came, it was swift. Swift as a racing horse.'

Twelve-year-old Daisy has just died in a car crash. But in a twist of fate, and through a heavenly bureaucratic mistake Daisy ends up, not where she is supposed to be - but in the body of a dog. Daisy may now be inhabiting a dog's body, but inside she is still very much Daisy, and is as bouncy, loyal, positive, energetic as she ever was.

Daisy's only thought is to somehow be reunited with her parents, who she knows will be missing her. And this is how she meets Pip, a boy who is homeless and on his own journey, and a lasting, tender and very moving friendship between boy and dog/girl is formed.

• ISBN10: 1471403181
• ISBN13: 9781471403187
• Publish Date: 1 October 2015
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 17 August 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Hot Key Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 208
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sarah Says]

Yes, this book is a story of death and reincarnation, but it’s also a story of love, friendship and second chances. It is heart-breaking and heart-warming all at the same time. It is quite an easy read, that has a nice flow and fast pace.

In Taking the wrong door, Daisy who was a twelve-year-old girl, goes into a new life as a new born puppy with all her memories. The door she was supposed to take would have erased her memories, wiping her slate clean.
Dog Daisy is determined to get back to her human parents and recreate some former resemblance of her old life - this doesn’t go very well.

A sequence of events (I don’t want to give too much away!) finds Daisy out own her own and struggling to stay alive a stray dog. Fate and a drifter named Jack bring Pip and her together. It is Pip who gives Daisy the name Ray (as in a ray of sunshine), which is the first step in Daisy’s healing process.
Pip is a fourteen-year-old boy who has run away from his foster carers on a mission to track down his father.
Pip and Ray need each other and they form a deep and pure bond.

There are plenty of twists and turns in Pip and Ray’s adventure/search for Pip’s dad and even though it’s not what he imagined, Pip gets a happy ending.

Slowly Daisy slips away as she comes to terms with her death and embraces the life of Ray. In the end she is at peace and happy.

The way Ms Coggin wrote the way Ray thought was believable and I felt she captured the heart of a dog beautifully in this book.
It is a sweet story with some beautiful characters that I don’t think I’ll forget any time soon.