59 pages • 1 hour read
Katherine Applegate, Gennifer CholdenkoDogtown
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 105-131Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 105 Summary: “Telephone Poles”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of animal death.
The next morning, the group finds a map of the city, which lets them figure out the way back to Dogtown. Chance wants to get Metal Head and the book back to Quinn, but the idea of staying at Dogtown makes her sad. She remembers the sign that convinced her to leave and wonders, “[W]ould there be telephone poles I hadn’t yet checked on our way home?” (274).
Chapter 106 Summary: “A Heart Is a Nuisance”
On their way back to Dogtown, Metal Head asks why Chance is returning when there’s no reason for her to and her humans could be looking for her. Chance realizes that Metal Head does have a heart, even if it’s made of metal. Metal Head says that hearts are a nuisance, and Chance agrees: “[M]y heart was worn out from all the hoping. And I wasn’t sure I could hope anymore” (278).
Chapter 107 Summary: “Everybody Hated Mice”
When the group gets to Dogtown, they aren’t sure how to get inside because they’ve never entered voluntarily: “[D]ogs didn’t choose to go to Dogtown” (279). When a volunteer arrives and opens the door, Metal Head trots through, followed by Mouse, who scurries to hide because the humans hate mice.
Chapter 108 Summary: “Humans Underestimate Dogs”
The Dogtown humans are amazed that Metal Head and Chance got back and found Green Eggs and Ham. They can’t believe that Metal Head knew how important the book was, to which Chance thinks, “[T]here wasn’t a dog in Dogtown who hadn’t seen how important Green Eggs and Ham was to Quinn” (284).
Chapter 109 Summary: “Walk of Shame”
Metal Head is rewarded with a reading buddy sweater and a dedicated spot on reading buddy row for bringing Green Eggs and Ham back. By contrast, Chance is marched to the basement, where Management says, “I’ll tell you one thing, Chance, you’re never going to run away again” (286).
Chapter 110 Summary: “Old Tricks”
After the freezing weather, the basement doesn’t feel so bad, though Chance wonders if her humans really might be looking for her. That night, Mouse steals a playing card for Chance’s cage, but this time, Management ignores it because “it [i]s an old trick and it d[oes]n’t work anymore” (289).
Chapter 111 Summary: “A Place in His Heart”
Chance doesn’t begrudge Metal Head getting special treatment while she’s punished. Management made that choice, though Chance does wonder, “[W]as it possible that metal dogs couldn’t help who they were, any more than we could?” (291).
Chapter 112 Summary: “Waiting”
Chapter 113 Summary: “Bear”
While Chance was gone, a dog named Bear took her place at a poker night when Management won big. Chance isn’t needed anymore, and she realizes that “he [is] [Management’s] lucky dog. Not [her]” (295).
Chapter 114 Summary: “Bootlicker”
Bear is a loyal dog who alerts Management to anything foul that’s going on, and Chance realizes that she’s headed for the List: “[M]y luck had finally run out” (297).
Chapter 115 Summary: “My Affairs in Order”
Chance works to find a way to help feed Mouse after she’s gone. On Quinn’s first day back, Metal Head is moved to the basement so that Quinn will know where to find him. Chance overhears Management discussing how Metal Head found Green Eggs and Ham, and the humans conclude that he is not simply a machine.
Chapter 116 Summary: “Littermates for Life”
Chance reflects on how she’s had organic dog friendships that didn’t last, even though both dogs looked alike. Metal Head and Mouse are very different from her, but they are her “littermates for life” (302).
Chapter 117 Summary: “Left Shoe Untied”
Quinn arrives at the next reading buddy day with his left shoe untied, but he does a happy dance when he sees Metal Head anyway. Dog and boy read together, and as the organic dogs watch, their resentment of the robot dogs fades.
Chapter 118 Summary: “A Dog’s Superpower”
Animal control brings in 17 new dogs, and Management scrambles to find room for them all. Since Chance is at the top of the List, they figure there’s no harm in letting her out of her cage, even though she ran away last time. The humans are sad that she’s going to die, though, because she has the dog superpower: “They love you no matter what” (307).
Chapter 119 Summary: “A Page From His Manual”
When Chance is set free, Metal Head says it is her chance to find her home. He gives her a page from his manual that he wrote himself, which says, “[Y]our heart is a muscle. It grows stronger the more you use it” (310).
Chapter 120 Summary: “Tucked Under My Collar”
Chapter 121 Summary: “Lopsided Moon”
Chance waits until the volunteers arrive to play poker that night. Two of them tease each other as they take off their coats, giving Chance time to sneak past them and through the door.
Chapter 122 Summary: “A Foolish Idea”
Chance wants to believe that her humans are waiting for her and have a good reason for not finding her. Still, she hates that she’s hopeful, as it leads to disappointment: “[O]nce hope gets inside you, you want your wishes to come true so badly, you just can’t imagine that they won’t” (315).
Chapter 123 Summary: “Sycamore Avenue”
Chance navigates back to her old house. The neighborhood feels so familiar that she feels “almost like [she] ha[s] four legs again” (318). The dog-sitter’s car isn’t at Chance’s house, but neither is Jessie’s mother’s.
Chapter 124 Summary: “Home”
Chance hops up the house’s front steps only to discover that it’s empty.
Chapter 125 Summary: “The Great Dog Park in the Sky”
Chance spends the night in the yard, but by the next day, there’s still no one at the house. She starts to recognize the neighborhood smells and decides, “[I]f I was going to the great dog park in the sky, I wanted to leave from here” (321).
Chapter 126 Summary: “A Left Ear Scratch”
A UPS driver whom Chance recognizes delivers a suitcase to the house and gives Chance a scratch behind her left ear. Chance recognizes the smell of the suitcase as her home and curls up atop it, “happier than [she] ha[s] been for a very long time” (324).
Chapter 127 Summary: “Blueberry Pancakes”
Later, an unfamiliar car arrives, bringing Jessie and her mother. They are overjoyed to see Chance, and Chance finally feels like she’s home. The family heads inside, but Chance doesn’t want to move. She’s afraid that if she moves, they’ll notice her missing leg and not want her anymore.
Chapter 128 Summary: “Three Legs”
Chance finally hops off the suitcase, revealing her missing leg. Her humans ask what happened, but since Chance can’t tell them, she instead launches into her “act.”
Chapter 129 Summary: “New Tricks”
Jessie and her mother don’t care that Chance only has three legs. They’re just glad she’s home, and Chance is so overjoyed that she “lick[s] the both of them from head to foot” (332).
Chapter 130 Summary: “The Smell of Ink”
Chance curls up on Jessie’s bed to watch her unpack, remembering all the old smells and finding a new ink smell. Chance sees a poster at the bottom of the suitcase that reads, “MISSING BROWN-AND-WHITE DOG” (334).
Chapter 131 Summary: “Three Friends”
Chance returns to her old life, playing with Jessie and enjoying her home. She misses Mouse and Metal Head but will find a way to visit them because her three legs are still lucky and “three friends? That’s lucky, too” (337).
Chapters 105-131 Analysis
Chance and Metal Head’s return to Dogtown further reveals The Dangers of Inequality by illustrating how groups with power sometimes foster division among those without it. Both dogs braved the elements, found Green Eggs and Ham, and wound their way back to Dogtown, but since Metal Head carried the book inside and is linked to that book because of Quinn, he is hailed as a hero while Chance is punished for running away. These conclusions by the humans are implied to stem partly from their own biases. Metal dogs are preferred by the people who adopt from Dogtown because of their convenience. Thus, the humans of Dogtown interpret Metal Head retrieving the book through the lens of its convenience to humans—i.e., as an act of service (though they are still surprised that he knew to do it). By contrast, Chance is punished because the Dogtown humans attribute her behavior to what they expect of organic dogs—disobedience.
When Chance first arrived at Dogtown, the cold loneliness of the basement symbolized everything she’d lost and believed she’d never find again. After her time at Dogtown and her recent adventure, however, Chance sees the basement in a new way, showing how surroundings change based on emotional state and worldview: The basement is now comforting because it is better than the freezing cold. More broadly, Chance has come to understand that as traumatic as losing her family was, her time at Dogtown was not entirely without its perks. This becomes even clearer when she learns that she’s at the top of the List—something her prior status as the shelter’s “lucky dog” shielded her from.
The basement and the List also propel Chance’s new desire to take a chance. With her place as lucky dog usurped, Chance recognizes that there’s nothing left for her but death at Dogtown, which makes her willing to look for her family. She’s been afraid to do so up until this point, but with nothing left to lose and the confidence she gained during her adventures with Mouse and Metal Head, she is brave enough to take up the search, even knowing that it may not bring her what she wants. That Chance succeeds in getting her family back shows the importance of taking such chances. Throughout the book, Chance disdains hope because she feels that it only brings pain, but at the end, she realizes that hope can also bring happiness.
Chance also fully abandons her animosity toward robot dogs in this section, developing the theme of What It Means to Be Alive. After seeing what Metal Head was willing to do to get his family back, she now understands that Metal Head has a heart. Further, seeing how Metal Head overcomes his grief to return to Dogtown for Quinn makes Chance understand that Metal Head, like any organic dog, can put the humans he loves before himself. At the same time, Chance’s new understanding of robot dogs does not entail denying his differences from herself. Rather, she recognizes what unites them but respects what makes them unique, much like she’s appreciated Mouse since before the novel’s beginning. Chance’s acceptance ultimately leads the other organic dogs of Dogtown to respect robot dogs and recognize their ability to think and feel, showing that it only takes one person to transform attitudes.
In fact, Chance’s attitude toward Metal Head evolves well beyond mere acceptance. In the final chapters, Chance realizes that Metal Head is family in a way that many of the organic dogs in Dogtown have never been. Chance also considers Mouse her family, supporting the found-family trope and showing young readers that families can be made up of more than blood relations: Chance, Mouse, and Metal Head are not even members of the same species, but they are family because they understand each other—the core idea underpinning the book’s exploration of The Nature of Family.
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