The Dog Book I Didn’t Write (And the One I Wrote Instead)

When people hear I wrote a book about my dog, they make assumptions. They expect Marley & Me—the heartwarming family tale that ends with a box of tissues. Or they picture a polished Instagram caption: Lessons My Dog Taught Me About Breath Work While Panting In My Face. Maybe they're bracing for the grief memoir—A Final Gift: How My Dog Taught Me to Say Goodbye. Or the redemption arc: broken veteran meets scrappy shelter mutt, both save each other and ride off into the sunset.

A Promise to Thunder is none of those books.

It's not Chicken Soup for the Dog Owner's Soul. It's not a eulogy or a grief piece written post-mortem to process loss. It's not a cute account of a family dog who went viral for skateboarding or learned to ring a bell when he needed to pee. And it's definitely not some sanitized highlight reel where the hard parts get edited out.

If you're looking for live laugh love in book form, this isn’t for you. If you want a dog book that makes you feel warm and safe and maybe a little weepy at the end, there's a whole shelf at Barnes & Noble for that.

This book doesn't come from that shelf. It comes from the sweat of the wrestling room and the barracks of West Point. From the back of a Ford F-150 and the jungles of Central America. From the barrios of Colombia, the sacred peaks of Peru, the Martian cliffs of Moab, the alpine citadels of Europe, the granite cathedrals of Yosemite. It comes from the road—tens of thousands of miles of it—and Thunder was there for all of it.

Not just the photogenic parts. Not just the triumphant BASE jumps and alpine sunrises. He was there for the hangovers and bad decisions. The euphoria of falling in love—that particular madness—and the kind of grief that never really heals, just scars over. The border crossings and the boredom. The mania and the depression. The recklessness and the reverence. 

If you're looking for a sweet story about a man and his dog, this isn't it. If you want to see a whole human being—broken and brilliant, reckless and reverent, loving and lost—then this might be for you.

Here's why that matters.

For me, writing is art, and certain pieces of art have a responsibility to be honest. Not comfortable. Not polished into something safe and digestible. Honest. That means confronting the full spectrum of the human experience: the beautiful and the ugly, the transcendent and the banal, the moments we're proud of and the ones we'd rather forget. Literature that only shows us our best selves is influencer propaganda masquerading as art.

The uncomfortable parts of being human aren't flaws to be edited out. They're essential. The loneliness is as much a part of the story as the love. The mistakes are as formative as the triumphs. The hours spent lost—literally and figuratively—teach us as much as moments of clarity. Sometimes more.

Thunder didn't just see my highlight reel. He saw me at my worst and stayed anyway. He didn't need me to be inspirational or redeemed or on some upward trajectory toward enlightenment. He needed me to be present. And if I'm going to honor that relationship honestly, I can't write a book that pretends the hard parts didn't happen or that they happened neatly, with lessons attached.

A Promise to Thunder is a literary memoir because it refuses to look away. It offers psychological and philosophical reflection, not platitudes. It's raw because the alternative is fiction.

The Journey with Thunder:

For nearly 16 years, Thunder was my constant. Together we crossed 32 countries, chasing romance and purpose from desolate cowboy ranches in the American West to the jungles of Latin America to the historic streets of Europe—on motorcycles and mountain passes, through rodeo arenas, lovers' kitchens, and long, lonesome highways. He bore witness to incandescent love and bone-deep heartache, to wild wingsuit BASE jumps in forbidden air and banal Tuesday afternoons wherever we called home. More than an adventure partner, he was the one steady presence in a life that kept unraveling. And when he died, finishing this book became something different: it became a promise kept.

A Promise to Thunder launches on Kickstarter May 1st. If any of this sounds like your kind of book, we'd love to have you there from the beginning.