Love Bites! Smelly Bill: Love Stinks by Daniel Postgate

Bill is a pooch who loves to nosh on trash, a habit which has rightfully earned him the name "Smelly Bill." But when Cupid's arrow finds its mark, everything changes.

When Bill saw Peachy Snugglekins
Come trotting past the rubbish bins,
His knees felt weak, his eyes grew wide.
He felt all gooey inside.
He dropped his bag of rotting stuff.
He'd seen enough.
He was in LOVE!

It's obvious that Peachy's mistress, Great Aunt Bleach, is not going to look with favor upon Bill in his current garbage-grungy state, so the next morning Bill's family awakens to a brand-new sight (straight out of Harry the Dirty Dog)--Bill in the bathtub, scrub brush in his mouth, begging for a bath.

The bath doesn't do much for Bill's looks, but he smells so good that his owners decide to enter him in the town's pooch parade, competing for the "Best Dog" Prize. Bill is thrilled; it's his chance to woo the lovely Peachy Snugglekins and make a better impression on Aunt Bleach as well.

But alas, Bill without the smell is still Bill, not exactly a winningly winsome sight with his long, pointy snout set off with snaggly teeth. The parade viewers are not kind:

"He's like a walking toilet brush!"

Bill is crushed.

But then danger strikes. A huge hound of horror, Vesuvius, begins to erupt in a frenzy of snarls and barks, and Aunt Bleach's little darling is pursued into the mucky swamp deep in the middle of the forest. Only Bill has the right stuff to rescue the imperiled Peachy and win her heart as well. Pretty is as pretty does, and even Aunt Bleach sees Bill's inner beauty just in time.

Daniel Postgate's second doggy drama starring his canine hero Bill, Smelly Bill: Love Stinks (Albert Whitman, 2010) is a jolly rhyming canine variant of Beauty and the Beast which will please primary-grade pooch lovers everywhere. Pair this one with Rob Scotton's tale of his love-smitten kitten, Love, Splat (Splat the Cat) for a pair of pet lover-pleasing love stories for the upcoming Valentine season.

Daniel Postgate's first Bill story is Smelly Bill.