The story begins with Cooler watching a cop show starring his hero, Police Detective Gumshoe Gallagher, in the Pound Puppies' mission control room when Brighteyes rushes into the room to inform him that a new dog's been brought to the pound. She mentions on a side note that it's the dogcatcher, Dabney Nabbit's birthday, and he's sad because he thinks that no one remembered. (Little does Nabbit know, however, that the dogs are planning him a surprise birthday party!)
Something that I thought I'd note, incidentally, is that Brighteyes' personality in the books is very different from her personality in the TV series; in the books she's a savvy, intuitive type, whereas in the series she's more of a ditzy character. To be fair, I like both of her personalities, but I thought the first one seemed a bit better.
Cooler peeks into the pound office (via an air vent) and observes a policeman bringing in a (very cute) small, brown dog of the bloodhound persuasion, who's wearing a muzzle. The policeman informs Mr. Bigelow, the pound supervisor, that the dog is a public nuisance; he had been barking all day until the whole neighborhood called to complain.
Cooler then introduces the new dog, whose name they discover is Bogart(which seems a very appropriate name for a bloodhound), to the rest of the group. Bogart then proceeds to share his (very sad) story with them: He's a stray, and has been one all of his life. He was wandering through a quiet neighborhood one day, when he heard someone crying.
He followed the sound to a garden shed and observed, via a knothole in one of the walls, a beautiful (and also very cute) cat tied to a shovel.(She looks a little like a Pound Purry!) She informed him that her name was Simone, and that she was a rare, prize-winning show cat being held for ransom by a pair of cat-nappers. She then proceeded to mention that she belonged to a rich old lady who has a young grandson named Sam, both of whom she misses dearly, which causes Bogart himself to wonder what it would be like to have a home and loving family of his own. (Sniff. :*C)
Bogart had then tried to open the shed door, but wasn't stong enough, so he started barking a lot in hopes of attracting someone's attention. He persisted with this, despite being run off by the cat-nappers several times.
An interesting note regarding these two cat-nappers is that they bear more than a passing resemblance to...
...a certain pair of dognappers, to the point where one wonders if these cat-nappers might, perhaps, be cousins of theirs, or at least some close relatives. Hmm...
Bogart, regrettably, only succeeds in angering the neighbors, who then call the police, who carry him off to the pound. Now he's being (very unfairly) called a public nuisance and Simone still needs rescued.
(You know, what the main problem here seems to be is that no one can understand "dog-speak." If Holly had only been there, she could have traslated for Bogart and cleared up so much of the confusion. Their fault for being in a different continuity, I guess.)
Fortunately, Cooler, being as resourceful as ever, concocts a plan: he, Scrounger, Violet and Bogart will set out to rescue Simone, while Brighteyes, Howler and the others will prep Nabbit's surprise party.
Scrounger then sets about collecting all the things they'll need for both missions, while Brighteyes and Howler use a ruse to lure Itchy and Snitchey, the pound guard dogs, into the main room for the party.
Another point of interest BTW, is that since this book was made after the TV show came out, Howler now speaks English, as he does in the show. (Honestly, IMHO that was a wise idea; he seemed lost without a voice.) Also, another interesting note, as per this picture, is that Howler has brown eyes(up close).
Bogart leads Cooler and the others to the house where he had seen the cat-nappers; they surround the house, shine flashlights in the windows, and play the sound and dialogue from the Gumshoe Gallagher show via a loudspeaker, which scares the cat-nappers out just in time for the real police to arrive.
The group leads the police to the shed where Simone is being held captive, at which point they reunite her with her owners and arrest the cat-nappers. In addition to this, Sam decides to keep Bogart. Sam's grandmother thanks the group and asks them if they'd like to come to their house to celebrate, but they decline, because they have to hurry back to the pound.
Back at the pound, the guard dogs lead Nabbit into the main room, where they're greeted by the Pound Puppies who have prepared an elaborate birthday party for Nabbit, which he's pleasantly surprised by. About midway into the festivities, Nabbit starts to wonder where Cooler, Violet and Scrounger got to, at which point the dogs quickly blindfold him for a game of "Pin the Tail on the Puppy," and distract the guard dogs with a couple of pieces of cake in an effort to buy Cooler and the others some time to get back. Needless to say, when they finally do return, Nabbit is surprised to see them. It's another case solved, thanks to the Pound Puppies!
UPDATE 6/10/12:I had wanted to mention that I recently acquired a coloring book with a similar subplot to this book; Nose Marie is sad because she thinks her birthday's been forgotten, but she doesn't know that the other dogs are planning a surprise party for her.
I purposely gave her the same color scheme that she has in the TV series in this pic, BTW.
My thoughts:Overall, this is one of the series best entries. The art style is excellent, Bogart and Simone (and even the cat-nappers!) are good characters, and the storyline is very nicely done; IMHO it would have translated well to an episode of the TV show. Perfect for any Pound Puppies fan/collector.
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