Bailey alerts Ethan, who saves his mother out through an upstairs window. That night, his vindictive classmate Todd throws a lit firecracker into Ethan's house, causing a house fire. Later, at a football game watched by scouts, Ethan is offered a full scholarship to Michigan State. Ethan orders him to leave and never return. At home one night, Ethan's drunken father becomes abusive towards his mother and him. They plan to go to the same college, Ethan getting a football scholarship and Hannah with an academic one. They spend their summer together, happily though senior year. One summer, Ethan meets Hannah at a fair with Bailey, and they soon begin dating. Years pass, and after several attempts at advancing in his job fail, Ethan's father has become an alcoholic. Bailey and Ethan bond quickly, especially over the summer at Ethan's grandparents' farm, and Bailey decides Ethan alone is his purpose. They break the truck's window and bring him home, naming him Bailey. Left locked inside their pick-up truck, he begins to die of heatstroke, but is rescued by a kindhearted mother and her eight-year-old son Ethan Montgomery. Leaving his cage at a puppy mill, he is taken by two garbage men who plan to sell him. The dog is reborn as a Golden Retriever in 1961. Weeks later, he is caught by dog catchers, whisked away to the pound, and euthanized. In the 1950s, a feral puppy wonders about life's true purpose.