He promises to go back and save his mother, Keeva, but along the way he discovers much more to life, such as being a pet, being a fugitive, being in the animal shelter, being in love, and revolting.
Doglands won the 2012 Montreuil Book Festival Prize for European Young Adult Fiction.
[1] Willocks also says that he wrote Doglands in forty-two days, saying that he was "completely devoured..." and he has "not followed the plan, but his instinct".
[2] The hardcover, library binding and ebook editions were published on 27 September 2011 by Random House Children's Books.
They are raised to believe that they are pure greyhounds, but as they get older, Keeva tells Furgul that he must run, because he is really a lurcher, and because of how fast he is growing, Dedbone is going to find out and kill him.
She plans to run away before her leash can be put on, giving the dogs time to jump into another, empty cardboard box and go to the racetrack, where they can escape.
Eena dies immediately of her shotgun wounds, but Furgul was only hit in the leg and Nessa still manages to survive.
After a bit of nagging from his wife Harriet, Gerry manages to convince her to keep Furgul, who meets up with Kinnear, a bulldog.
After the incident at the park, Gerry and Harriet don't want anything like that to happen again, so they decide that it's time for Furgul to get neutered.
Out on the streets he meets Pace, a Labrador Retriever and seeing-eye dog with an overwhelming sense of sarcasm.
While there, he also meets eight miniature female dogs who fall madly in love with him and chase him through the mall.
While in the truck on the way to the animal shelter, he meets Zinni the papillon, Tess the beagle, and Skyver the mutt.
All the cage doors are opened and the dogs break free, refusing to go anywhere until their demands are met.
At the first house, Furgul meets with two giant schnauzers named Cogg and Baz and convinces them to attack Tattoo and Spotty with the bribe of bacon.
Dervla, Cogg, and Baz come to live at Appletree, and peace is retained for a short amount of time.
Then Furgul expresses his desire to save his mother Keeva, and Jodi says that she will look up the racing greyhounds on the betting page of the papers.
Zinni has experience walking on wires, so she agitates the greyhounds enough with her presence for Dedbone to open the gates to see what the matter is.
Brennus sacrifices himself to save Keeva, getting shot attacking Dedbone and then lying injured until the truck runs him over, finally killing him.
Right before he dies, Brennus tells Furgul to run "The Doglines", the places where the ancestors of the dogs walked.
She is a greyhound and top racer, and is almost killed by Dedbone after she begins dancing in the track when she feels Argal's spirit in her.
Brid successfully escapes Dedbone, Eena is killed by a shotgun, and Nessa dies of her wounds in a mountain.
Kinnear, also known as Crennig, is a pet dog and a bulldog who is quite content with living at a person's house.
The Gambler is Dedbone's sidekick, and the one who figures out that Furgul, Eena, Nessa, and Brid are lurchers and not greyhounds.
Gerry finds Furgul injured and takes him home, where he learns all the rules, but escapes before he can be neutered.
He also thought that the mystic lore of the Doglands was a good thing, adding a secondary layer of fantasy.
He thought that the humans were only lightly sketched in, but believed that it was fitting considering the point of view.
The reviewer disliked the fact that, "with the exception of too-good-to-be-true Jodi", it seemed that the human characters were "one-dimensional sterotypes, mostly evil".