Trouble Dog: From Shelter Dog to Conservation Hero is a 2025 picture book written by Carol A. Foote and illustrated by Larry Day.
It tells the story of Tucker, a dog who is very energetic. Because he knocks things over and tears things up, multiple families return him to the shelter, and the shelter attendant starts telling people “Not this dog. He’s trouble”
Tucker sits in the shelter for months, until Laura adopts him. When he shows his energy, Laura puts that energy to work, setting up scent games and letting Tucker follow his nose, instincts, and heart.
Laura recognizes the value of Tucker’s combination of gifts (nose and energy), and puts him to work smelling out invasive species. He finds the first one, a rosy wolf snail that’s out of place in Hawaii, and that leads to a series of expeditions tracking specific animals for researchers, either to help them learn, to help them protect endangered species, or help them find and remove invasive species. His most ambitious find was cheetah poop (called scat) in Zambia.
This is teaching book, in three or four ways. First, it teaches kids what a conservation dog is. Second, it teaches them about the stresses on shifting ecosystems. Third, it teaches them how to deal with a high energy dog, and fourth, it reassures them that traits that might be seen as negative in one situation are positive, even heroic, in another.
I don’t think kids will love this book–Tucker’s journey is too easy, and it teaches a bit too directly–but they’ll like it and benefit from it, and they’ll enjoy the energy of Larry Day’s illustrations.
