Remember the puppies from the first book in the Wild at Heart vet volunteer series? The ones from the puppy mill that Zoe's cousin Maggie tried to save? Well, the puppy that Zoe's grandmother, Dr. J.J. MacKenzie, let her keep is now six months old, and goes by the name of Sneakers. Dr. J.J. told Zoe that she is responsible for training him, and she's having a rough time of it. Especially because Maggie is so good at training animals, and Zoe doesn't know how. Sneakers chews up Maggie's retainer and Zoe's shoes. And he leaves unpleasant little surprises everywhere. Maggie steps in one of them, and she is not happy! She complains when Zoe doesn't do something about it, and then shows off how good she is at training her own dog, Sherlock. Well, Maggie is good at it, but Sherlock is seven years old, for Pete's sake, and a basset hound. How tough can it be to train an easygoing basset hound?

Still, Zoe has to do something about Sneakers. Dr. J.J. tells her so. So she tries. And Maggie raises superior eyebrows and smirks a lot. But Zoe is determined to show Maggie.

Zoe has an extra special reason, too, a reason that concerns her favorite of all Dr. J.J.'s patients    --- Yum-Yum. He is a tiny shih tzu that Zoe grooms for his owner, Jane. He's 12 years old, and he's a therapy dog in the children's cancer ward of the hospital. Jane takes Zoe with her to visit the hospital, and is Yum-Yum ever trained! He sits up, shakes hands, rolls over. He does anything the kids tell him to do, and he cheers them all up. Zoe is speechless at how good he is.

Jane tells her that Sneakers has the right stuff in him to be a therapy dog, too. Yeah, right. Like when he gets excited with the kids, runs down the halls, and leaves a puddle in the middle of the disinfected floor. That's the right stuff, all right    --- for getting him kicked out of the hospital by the nurse and told never to come back.

Zoe is a hard worker, though, and competitive. So she decides that if Yum-Yum can do it, Sneakers can do it. And it becomes even more important for her to train Sneakers when Dr. J.J. finds a tumor in Yum-Yum's mouth. Jane is devastated. Yum-Yum is all she has. She and Zoe take him to the university veterinary hospital for chemotherapy, just like the kids he cheered up had to go through. Zoe is scared. What if nobody can help Yum-Yum? Who will take his place at the hospital? If Sneakers really does have the right stuff in him, can she bring it out?

   --- Reviewed by Tamara Penny