In February of 2025, I became a grandfather for the first time. After losing Alex, I didn’t know if that was something I would ever get to experience.
Watching my granddaughter grow this past year has been one of the great joys of my life. And with each passing month, it brought me back — back to when Alex was born 31 years ago, and what it felt like to become a father for the first time.
As the holiday season approached, I began thinking about a gift. I wanted to give her something meaningful — something that reflected how I felt about her.
She loves books. I love to write. So it occurred to me to write a story for her — something her parents could read to her and that might reinforce the relationship I hope to build with her over time.
I also love dogs, especially German Shepherds. And, as a photographer, have have tens of thousands of pictures of the dogs that have been part of my family. So maybe a children’s book about our dogs, loaded with pictures of the pack that had been such a constant in our lives through everything. I got started on the project, but life took over and I didn’t have time to finish it by December.
So we gave her something else for Christmas.
Then on Christmas Eve, the family got together and Jill and I received a wonderful gift — news that a second granddaughter was on the way.
That moment inspired me to finish the book. Now it wasn’t just for one — it was for both of them — and possibly more in the future.
My granddaughters will know the current pack. I like the idea that they could grow up seeing these dogs in a different way. That someday they could look at the pages, recognize the dogs, and understand the stories behind them.
So the plan was simple.
This was going to be a one-off — put something together, print a couple through a service like Chatbooks, and give them to the girls. That would be it.
But when I shared the book with a few people, they saw something more in it. They encouraged me to think bigger. And the more I did, the more a different possibility came into focus — not just a book, but a way to do something meaningful with it.
That’s when the connection to The Alex Lebovic Foundation became clear.
There’s a kind of symmetry in all of this. Alex’s pack spans from the very beginning through Dakota. My granddaughters’ pack begins with Dakota and carries forward from there. Different moments in time, but part of the same story.
The book is rooted in everything those dogs gave us. Each one had a role. Each one carried something forward — loyalty, patience, comfort, and the kind of presence that matters most when everything else is hard. Those lessons didn’t disappear when one dog was gone. They passed to the next dog, to us, and now, in a different way, to my granddaughters.
I also wanted to honor the dogs. They weren’t just pets. They were woven into our lives in a real and lasting way.
The book felt like a way to recognize that — to preserve something of who they were.
What started as a gift for two young girls became something more. A way to share those stories. A way to carry them forward. And a way to support the work of The Alex Lebovic Foundation — the veterinary scholarships, the childhood cancer research, and the animal welfare work that Alex cared about so deeply.
That’s how The Great Dog Pack came to be. And there’s a lot more story still to tell.
You can learn more about the book and the foundation here.
And if you want to spend some time with the dogs, you can see more of them here.