It is Bub the pug's first trip to the beach, and Bella wants to enter him in a pet-surfing contest, but Bub is scared of the ocean and refuses, so he hopes to make it up to Bella by presenting her with the treasure at the end of the map he found.

"On July 1, 1916, witnesses watched in horror as twenty-eight-year-old Charles Vansant was attacked and killed by a shark in shallow water at Beach Haven, New Jersey--the first recorded shark attack in American history. Scientists claimed a shark could not be responsible, but more deadly attacks soon followed along the Jersey Shore and up the freshwater Matawan Creek, setting off a nationwide panic that led the White House to declare a war on sharks"--...

Milton the bull should be content, but he cries all the time, even when he is happy, and becoming a bully just makes him even sadder--until he finds a true friend who also cries a lot and understands him.