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DOG SENSE by Sneed B. Collard III

DOG SENSE

by Sneed B. Collard III

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 2005
ISBN: 1-56145-351-X
Publisher: Peachtree

When eighth grader Guy Martinez moves to small-town Montana, the only good thing is his new dog Streak, a border collie. At school he makes a friend, Luke Grant, and an enemy, class bully Brad Mullen. Luke helps him train his dog to catch frisbees, but Brad has a frisbee-catching dog, too. When Guy foolishly bets his dog on the outcome of the regional championships, he knows he has made a serious mistake. A veteran nonfiction writer, Collard shows in his first novel that he can construct a suspenseful plot and create believable characters. Some good things happen during the year: A clever teacher changes Guy’s opinion of English class, and he finds a girlfriend. However, not all of Guy’s problems miraculously disappear. His father doesn’t come back and his new friend, whose family was ostracized for opposing an environmentally unsound mining venture, leaves town. But Guy realizes that sometimes you have to accept that bad things happen, and move on. With a dog like Streak, he can. (Fiction. 9-13)