Today, Doug Rose looks to change the way Americans once again view their way of life through his first novel “Fearless Puppy on the American Road,” which exposes the reader to a journey that covers the 35 years Rose spent hitchhiking across the American countryside.

Throughout his adventures on the road, Rose has logged more than a quarter-million miles through the use of his own thumb – never once driving a car. His novel introduces the reader to his bizarre and inspiring world and the characters he encountered along the way

Throughout the book you will meet a man who is his own uncle, Native American wise men, racist killers, martial artists battling neo-Nazis, angelic witches and a plethora of other interesting characters who Rose uses to provide life-long lessons to his readers.

Rose grew up in Brooklyn in an age when he could travel to New York City’s East Village by way of a quick train ride and go to house shows with psychedelic rockers like Santana, Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane, for what the price a gallon of gas costs today.

“It was the kind of an era when everything was a lot looser, there was the whole free love, women’s rights, everybody’s rights, which has since been squashed to a great degree, was really starting to flower at that time,” he said.

Rose ran away from home at the age of 15 and took up a life of drug dealing – eventually dropping 500 hits of LSD before he was 30 and surviving bouts with alcohol and heroin addictions.

“That was a particular period in history when it was more conducive to be free,” he said. “People were picking you up on the road and every Volkswagen Van was a guaranteed ride and a guaranteed party – it was more fun hitchhiking than staying home. So I just started doing it and it worked out so well I never stopped.”

For years, Rose had been pressured by friends to write the story of his adventures on the road and he finally decided to chronicle his experiences in an attempt to establish permanent funding sources to be used for sponsoring the physical care and education of what he hopes will be an increasing number of “wisdom professionals.” These so-called “wisdom professionals” encompass shamans, monks, nuns and other spiritual leaders who Rose feels will help put America back on the right path.   

“I am trying to help humanity move its mentality in another direction – more toward the positive – more toward the way people actually want to live because I don’t think people are actually stupid enough to want to live in a world that is going down the sewer,” he said. “I think it just kind of got out of control and the wisdom professionals will help put us back on a path that is going in the right direction.”

Rose will use the first profits from his book to build a hotel type guest house near Temples in Asia. The facility will be built Western-friendly with clean water, A/C and other conditions that people of Western culture have come accustomed to. He hopes that the facility will help inspire Westerners to travel to the temples to receive teachings from their Lamas. In turn, he intends for the students to help fund and support the continuation of the “wisdom professionals” teachings.

Rose is not new to the world of fundraising as he has spent as much of his life supporting various philanthropic causes as an unpaid volunteer as he has hitchhiking. Most notably, the work he conducted for the homeless in the 1980s, which led to the creation of a non-profit organization, called Legion of Volunteer Enterprises – an organization that former Massachusetts Governor

Michael Dukakis was an honorary board member of. He also has raised money for organizations like Greenpeace and international famine relief – for which he was praised on the congress floor by Senator John Kerry in 1985.

Rose published “Fearless Puppy” by borrowing $7,000 from his childhood friend Bryan “Patty” Ayers. He printed 1,000 copies and he hopes that the sale of the first thousand books will allow him to pay back his friend and have enough to print up another thousand books.

“From that point the puppy will be running on its own paws and it can keep rolling from there,” he said.

Rose hopes to turn “Fearless Puppy” into a trilogy that he calls Dog Soldier. “Fearless Puppy on the American Road” is the first book and the second, which he has basically already completed, is called “Temple Dog Soldier” and chronicle a time he spent living at a temple in Thailand. The third book will mostly entail what he will be doing with the money he raised from the sale of the first two books.

Today, Rose lives with his girlfriend in Brattleboro, Vt. where he is spending his time promoting his book by asking local store owners, who he mostly met through his years of fundraising, to stock his book.

Numerous local stores in Saratoga Springs have become a part of his grassroots promotional efforts including Mani Festation and the Four Seasons Natural Food store. He will also be signing books at Boarders Aug. 2 from 3 to 5 p.m.

To learn more about Doug Rose and “Fearless Puppy on the American Road,” visit: www.fearlesspuppy.org.