When Marty Preston comes across a young beagle in the hills behind his home, it's love at first sight—and also big trouble. It turns out the dog, which Marty names Shiloh, belongs to Judd Travers, who drinks too much and has a gun—and abuses his dogs. So when Shiloh runs away from Judd to Marty, Marty just has to hide him and protect him from Judd. But Marty's secret becomes too big for him to keep to himself, and it exposes his entire family...

Rafe Khatchadorian is horrified that because of a missed science assignment he has to go to summer school; but instead of three weeks in a school room, he finds himself as a volunteer at BushyTail animal refuge, which is really hard, smelly work--and somehow he needs to use the experience (and the help of a girl he meets there) to produce a first-class science report.