When a local vet and a pampered pet disappear, Holly Winter and her veterinarian lover Steve Delaney go to the exclusive Cambridge Dog Training Club to investigate.

From Publishers Weekly

If the initials CD bring to mind a dog obedience title rather than audio merchandise or a financial investment, you may well be one of Conant's ( Paws Before Dying ) fans--or one of her canine-obsessed characters. Heroine Holly Winter of Cambridge, Mass., spends her time training her two copiously described Alaskan malamutes, enjoying a courtship with a veterinarian, contributing to dog-lovers' magazines and solving mysteries. In this latest outing, well-regarded veterinarian Oscar Patterson has vanished. Holly's hackles rise as she sniffs out a few suspects, among them a client whose dog died in Patterson's care and an unprincipled trainer whom Patterson had rebuked. As in Conant's other books, mystery takes a distant second to details of doggiedom: the author recommends wholesalers of pet supplies, comments on the terrier personality, advises how best to get a rare breed recognized by the American Kennel Club, and so forth. Conant infuses her writing with a healthy dose of humor about Holly's Fido-loving friends and other Cambridge cliques; the target of her considerable wit clearly emerges as human nature.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

The first hardcover Conant mystery, custom-groomed for dog people, whose devotion to the canine goes beyond that of mere dog lovers--dog people are those who can discuss impacted anal sacs [at a party] without gagging on their Brie.'' The sleuth here is Holly Winter, in a mystery plot one shouldn't worry too much about. It concerns the disappearance of Dr. Oscar Patterson, DVM, who had recommended vet Lee Miner to Holly's vet/inamorato Steve Delaney as a partner in his clinic. It was Dr. Miner (a cold dish of Iams) who'd heard a row between Dr. Paterson and an owner whose dog had just died in the small hours. Is Oscar dead? And where is Jackie Miner, Lee's wife? Featured here is a rare breed, the Chinook, related to the malamute, Holly's chosen breed. The mystery itself wobbles here and there, but the Cambridge, Mass., setting is fun (Harvard at Christmas with super-pipeswith a range of three notes'' and Morris dances), and the dog talk for the hard-core dog crowd is fine. Come. Sit. Stay. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.