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Summary
Summary
Adopting a shelter dog comes with unconditional love, but also many questions.
A little boy imagines what life was like for his new dog before he adopted him from a shelter. Maybe he had a boy who loved him, but the family had to move and couldn't keep him. Maybe he belonged to someone who didn't appreciate how mischievous puppies can be. Maybe he was treated badly.
But the most important thing is that now, he can be shown all the love he's been missing. Because this dog is home.
Winner of the Humane Society KIND Children's Picture Book Award and the ASPCA Henry Bergh Children's Book Award, this touching story celebrates all who support, care for, and adopt shelter dogs.
Reviews (1)
Kirkus Review
"Before you were mine . . . " wonders a little boy, "[d]id you live in a warm house with warm smells and a rug that was only yours? [Or were] you kept on a chain, with a dusty bowl and lonely sounds all around?" Never varying from this direct address, the little boy speculates about the life his dog may have led before being adopted from the shelter. He imagines happiness, cruelty, misfortune, neglect: "[Maybe] you ran away and they never heard that if your dog runs away, you look for him . . . until you find him." Softly framed pastel panels and vignettes depict a round, mustard-colored little mutt playing with an imagined boy, making puppy-mischief, alone and scared, before being taken to the shelter for "a meal, and a bath, and a bed of your own" before coming home with the narrator. Boelts's restrained text and Walker's affecting illustrations combine to pack a small wallop directly to the hearts of dog-loving children who will almost certainly give their pets an extra hug afterwards. A note on adopting a shelter pet follows this unabashedly emotional offering. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.