Watson The Detective Dog product reviews

My children have always been interested in animals, especially dogs, however they were surprised in the supermarket one day to see a dog with its human. This then developed into a long conversation about what roles some animals have, such as support animals for people, dogs to assist the blind, and detection dogs to name a few. I saw the book about Watson the Detective Dog and I thought that it looked interesting to read and would be a good resource to read to the younger children at our local school.

From first glance at the cover, we see a dog who looks very inquisitive with its nose close to a creature on the ground, with the title my children thought maybe Watson would be investigating a crime of some kind, I told them I highly doubted that. When we first started to read the children were amused that Watson could find every ball that was thrown for him, even if he could not see it, purely just by sniff, sniff, sniffing!
When it was suggested that Watson would make a good detection dog, the family went along with it and a conservation worker came to their house to watch Watson in action, proudly producing 10 balls from the long grass, Watson was then recruited to help search out whitebait eggs in order to transfer them to safe locations.

Watson's training consisted of learning some basic commands with just hand signals so as not to make noise to scare the whitebait away, learning the scent of the whitebait eggs and then alerting the person of where they are, training also consisted of going to a large training ground with many other animals and scents, Watson was wearing a collar and when he smelled the birds the collar would vibrate, this was a feeling that Watson did not find pleasant. One day a film crew were present to watch Watson in action and to film him in the process of hunting out the whitebait, he found some and was praised and told he was a star! Watson passed his training and became part of the conservation team; this book is written about a true story from New Zealand.

My children found this quite an interesting read and wondered what else dogs could be trained to sniff out, I gave some examples of drugs, various fruits and vegetables including Truffles over in Australia. I liked how this book was informative to children and had plenty of vivid pictures that matched along with the storyline perfectly, both the children and I hope that there will be more books written about animals doing jobs to help the conservationists.

The book cover of Watson the Detective Dog was all it took to engage the children's attention. They both love dogs, and before the story had been read, they had already leafed through the pages to look at the other illustrations. Once the pictures had been thoroughly admired, it was time to read the story proper. Miss Five helped as she recognises a lot of the words now, and likes to read to her younger brother. The colours are not too bright which makes this an ideal book for bedtime; the children and their parents too found them quite relaxing.

The section where Watson demonstrates his ability to find and retrieve balls no matter where they are made both children laugh. Until recently, a family member had a little dog called Josie who was obsessed with balls (one in particular) and would seek it out no matter where it had been put (or where she had lost it). Miss Five said she would have made an excellent conservation dog too, just like Watson. Mr Four thought it was clever that a dog could learn to smell whitebait when they were in the water and wondered if Josie could have been able to do that too. Knowing Josie, I am pretty sure she would!

We loved the way the story blended entertainment with fact. Conservation is something children cannot learn about early enough; at four and five years old, the children are already on board. They did not actually know about whitebait as it is not something they have ever eaten, but when they realised that these little fish were threatened by pollution and over harvesting, they were 100% on board with any efforts to protect them. It was a bonus for them when they realised that this is a true story and the real life Watson really is training to do his bit for conservation. Mr Four was also delighted that these dogs are trained to stay away from protected birds like kiwi.

The script font is large and clear which made it easy for Mr Four to pick out the few words he knows. Sometimes children's books use fancy scripts or contrasting colours which make it more difficult for beginning readers to follow them. Together with the wonderful artwork, this book is especially accessible for young children, and, as a bonus, the story length is perfect for bedtime. Both children were keen to know if there would be a sequel planned to follow Watson's career as he finishes his training.