TROUBLE DOG

A shelter dog finds a new job—and a home.

Tucker, a sweet-faced yellow pooch with floppy ears, loves to play. Relentlessly energetic and unintentionally destructive, he’s a poor fit for most families. After he’s returned to the animal shelter yet again, a worker warns prospective adopters that Tucker is “trouble.” Then he meets Laura, a trainer who sees something special in him. She starts by using Tucker’s favorite toy to teach him to find flowers among a row of cinder blocks. As Laura introduces new scents into the game, she’s able to channel Tucker’s curiosity, intensity, and obsessive focus on play into the skills necessary to locate invasive species and track rare or endangered creatures around the world. Vibrant watercolors capture Tucker in constant motion, whether in trashed living rooms or the jungles of Myanmar. The text, perfect for reading out loud, conveys Tucker’s boundless capacity for destruction (“Rrr-rip! Splat! CRACK!”), dedication to his new assignment (“He zigzagged across the ground…and kept searching until…There!”), and bond with Laura (“‘Keep looking,’ Laura said. ‘I trust Tucker’”). With humor, heart, suspense, and adventure, this story will win over animal lovers of all ages. Laura is light-skinned with brown hair; background characters are diverse. Backmatter notes that the book is based on the experiences of the real-life founders of Working Dogs for Conservation.

A fascinating, feel-good tale about the unique dogs trained for conservation work.