What Kodiak Thinks About the Cardiff Dog Pack Book (A Review By the Dog It’s Based On)
Hey, it’s Kodiak.
So apparently my dad wrote a book about me.
I found out the same way most dogs find out important news — someone left it on the coffee table and I sniffed it for a while.
Then my dad read it to me.
Here’s my official review.
The Parts About Me
Obviously the best parts.
I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
The book gets me exactly right. Brave. Calm under pressure. Good instincts. Excellent fur.
I have no notes on the Kodiak sections. Zero. Perfect as written.
Moving on.
The Part Where Steve Made Us Pray
Okay this one surprised me.
I’ll be honest — I’m not a big prayer guy. I’m more of a keep-moving, assess-the-situation, trust-your-paws kind of dog.
When Steve stopped us in the middle of the desert and said we needed to pray before going further, I wanted to keep moving. We had two dogs to rescue. There were coyotes somewhere out there. Every second counted.
But Steve insisted.
So we stopped. And we prayed.
And here’s the thing I didn’t expect:
I felt better after.
I don’t know exactly why. I felt like someone had patted me on the head and was looking out for us. Something settled inside me — like the desert got a little quieter and my head got a little clearer.
I don’t know, I think about that moment more than I expected to.
The Part About Dash
This was my favorite part of the whole book.
The book nails how annoying Dash is.
Dash is a great dog and a great friend. Loyal, brave, would absolutely take a coyote bite for you without thinking twice. But he never fully left the military. He still talks like he’s running a tactical operation. He still assesses every situation like it’s a threat briefing.
And in the desert — this is the part that still makes me shake my head — Dash grabbed a coyote.
Just… grabbed one.
Because he thought that’s what we were out there for.
It was not what we were out there for.
And then, later, the coyotes surrounded us.
Which, if you read the book, you’ll know did not go great for a few, very stressful minutes.
Dash knew he messed up. He didn’t say it out loud because Dash never says anything out loud. But I could tell.
Even Dash has to learn sometimes.
The Part About Terry
Terry is a good dog.
Terry is also exhausting.
The book captures this perfectly. Terry is always moving, always talking, always approximately 40% more excited than the situation requires. He’s not the brightest dog in the pack — and he would agree with that if he understood what it meant — but his heart is enormous and he never quits.
In the desert, when things got bad, Terry kept the energy up even when he probably shouldn’t have.
That’s Terry.
Annoying. Loyal. Irreplaceable.
The Part Where The Rest of The Pack Showed Up
This was the part that got me.
When the coyotes had us surrounded, when things were looking bad and I wasn’t sure how we were getting out — the rest of the Cardiff Dog Pack showed up.
I hadn’t asked them to come. I told them they didn’t have to.
But when it got late and me, Dash and Terry hadn’t come back to the dog park — they came anyway.
They just came.
No questions. No hesitation. Just the Pack showing up because that’s what the Pack does.
I don’t have a joke for this one.
It just meant a lot.
Overall Rating
My dad loves two books more than almost anything — Lord of the Rings and Watership Down.
Both are about small unlikely groups going on dangerous journeys together. Both are about loyalty and courage and what happens when you push through fear because the mission matters more than the risk.
I think he was thinking about both of them when he wrote the Cardiff Dog Pack.
I’m not saying Episode 1 is Lord of the Rings.
But it’s a really good book.
And I would know.
I was there.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — Kodiak, Cardiff Dog Pack
Blog at you later,
Kodiak
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