A lifetime ago, an enormous part of my job was interacting with children and teaching them about humane education, dog bite prevention, kindness to animals, and the purpose of an animal shelter. Part of my strategy was to leave a lasting impression on the children I interacted with. Excluding live animals, the best way to do that was to include books that illustrated the important parts of those topics. Over the course of seven years, I amassed many books, some great and others, not so much. I did manage to find a handful of favourites that I would read over and over again, though. Every of those handful of favourites, one book still sticks in my mind (and sits on my personal shelf) more than ten years later.
“Before You Were Mine”, by Maribeth Boelts, is a tale about a young boy and his newly adopted puppy. The boy begins the story by considering all the possibilities of what his puppy might have experienced before he was adopted. The boy imagines that the puppy might have had another name or even had another boy who loved him and was proud of him. He wonders if, perhaps, the family didn’t understand how challenging puppies could be or maybe, just maybe, they couldn’t keep the puppy because their living situation changed. The boy even suggests that the family didn’t realize, “if your dog runs away, you look for him… until you find him”.
The protagonist discusses the loss of an old family dog and how he’s certain he could never love another dog like he loved her, but then… “there was… you.”
The story ends as the boy decides that it doesn’t matter where his puppy came from, because he has found a forever home with him.
It all comes down to emotion
Truth be told, I have never made it through this story without, at the very least, becoming rather verklempt. The first time I read it, I sobbed at my desk, which is exactly the reaction one is hoping for when auditioning books to be apart of a program that requires them to be read out loud… to group of strangers. I don’t remember the exact number of times I had to read it out loud until I could do it without blubbering, but trust me when I tell you, it was more than ten.
The line that always does me in is: “Before you were mine… they couldn’t have known what they had in a dog like you… or they never would have let you go”.
My visceral response to this story is a direct result of lived experiences and one of the main reasons why I connect with it so deeply. Some of my best dogs were dogs that were left behind when plans changed and things got tough. With love, understanding, and a lot of training, those dogs became everything they should have been and more than I could have ever expected. Over the years, I have often wondered about their first families and if they truly knew what they left behind and felt great sadness for all the love they missed out on.
Maribeth Boelts’ clever use of empathy, emotion, and relatability in this story is the winning combination for me. Yes, the plot is simple (though, great stories always have a simple plot when you get right to it), but this book allows the reader to stop and consider how their actions affect others and how the simple act of adopting a dog can change the world for more than just that dog.
If you’re ready to locate your own “Before You Were Mine” dog, the Edmonton Humane Society is good place to start.
(If you are too impatient to wait for the book to come in the mail, you can find a reading of the book via the Literature Guide Podcast here.)
EXSM 3989 - Digital Storytelling Class Blog 