Based on an actual event in the Pokomoke Forest area of Marylands East Shore where a pack of wild dogs led by a white shepherd raised havoc, this story is much more than a recounting or an indictment of those who maltreat or abandon animals. It is a fully developed story told with insight and compassion by an omniscient narrator. There is no mistaking what each clearly drawn character is about. The author has combined a high-interest animal rights subject with an everyday, spoken English style.

Juniper Bumpas has little common sense and disregards the laws and rules of both men and nature. Jonathan Bush is a farmer and fair man who, while understanding nature and knowing the necessary fate of wild dogs, loves his son, Bobby, and is open-minded about possible, workable, alternative actions. Bobby Bush loves the magnificent dog from afar and dreams of taming him, of saving him from certain death. And there is the white German Shepherd himself. We pass from September to summer with him in the woodlands, experiencing its beauties and its perilsfeeling his cold, hunger, fear and need for companionship. Only when food becomes scarce do we turn to farm animals for foodman views this transgression as the signal to mobilize to hunt down and kill this wild dog pack.

The novels action includes the dog hunt, a forest fire, the growing relationship between Bobby and the Shepherd, Bumpas discovery of that relationship, and the courtroom battle in which the Shepherd wins his right to live as Bobbys dog, and Bumpas gets a jail sentence.