A single woman named Mary is lonely in her well-kept stone house, so she adopts a basset hound from the local pound with the assistance of Sam, the resident dog trainer. Her new pet, Blue the basset hound, howls for his missing pals, who escape from the pound and burst in to join him. The pack of pooches creates havoc in Mary’s house, so she calls on kindly Sam to help her with training the whole bunch of dogs so they can stay. Romance and a wedding ensue, resulting in a happy, settled home for Mary and Sam and all the dogs. Swaim’s rollicking text unfolds in rhyming couplets with some humorous wordplay and inserted sound effects of the basset hound’s distinctive howls at the end of funny strings of descriptions of the dogs’ behavior. The bouncy text is well complemented by McElmurry’s cheerful gouache illustrations full of leaping dogs and muddy footprints tracked all over Mary’s cozy house. Dog lovers will enjoy the antics of this happy bunch. (Picture book. 4-8)
