“After I read the story,” says Koontz, “I said to Father Jerome, ‘Am I getting this correctly, because it’s so subtle, it’s easily missed?’ And he said, ‘Yes – it follows the belief that when the supernatural enters our world, it doesn’t do so in spectacular, cinematic ways. It happens very subtly.’

“And I came to feel that Trixie was this very sort of presence of God in our lives because she so completely changed both of us and made so many beneficial changes in our lives that it seemed to me beyond simply being a dog.”