Review for Dot: For Pet’s Sake
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.
Meet Dot, a tiny girl with big ideas. In this book she decides to start a pet-sitting service.. or well, she is kind of pushed into it. I just love pets and while I haven’t started a pet-sitting service myself when I was a kid (due to allergies) I do love the idea and wish I could have done the same as Dot. Though maybe not have let chaos reign when things go wrong! 😛
I loved that Dot has an app that allows her to input what an animal needs. That does make things a bit easier than writing it all down (and then losing the paper). I had a bit of a laugh when Dot found out that the cat had a litterbox, um girl, how else did you think that the cat would do his/her stuff? It is not a dog. I loved that the app not only was a list of what to do, but it also send out reminders of when to feed, to clean, etc.. OK, the cleaning part does kind of depend on how dirty the litterbox stuff is. I know with my hammies it can range from every 2 days, to 3 days, to 5 days. It all depends on how much they decided to make a mess. Just check it every day to make sure.
I wasn’t such a fan how much she relied on the app. That it would be easier no matter how many pets she would have because the app would remind her. Yes, it may be easier, but every animal needs caring. Cats and dogs and birds the most. It is not as simple as following an app. Not to mention that dogs x cats or cats x birds x fish may not go together.
And then we get to the point that chaos was about to happen, and it all starts other people hearing about Dot doing pet-sitting. Oh my. I do wonder why Dot didn’t first talk it over with an adult. Or where the adults were for that matter. I am not sure how it is with Dot’s family, but it seems people can just walk in like that. That definitely wasn’t the case for me when I was a kid.
I am glad that Dot learned a lesson at the end. That makes me happy.
All in all, I am a bit mixed up on this story. While it was a cute one and I loved the pets and Dot’s good intentions, the illustrations were very nicely done, but I do wonder where the adults where, why those two other kids didn’t just put their pets downstairs (I mean if you just have to do that you don’t need a petsitter), and why Dot thought it would all go well. I was just at times shaking my head at things that happened in this book.