Buckledown the Workhound

New Yorker cartoonist Shanahan ( Lassie, Get Help ) wittily weighs corporate living against laidback country customs in his first picture book. Buckledown, a bipedal canine executive at Pawprints Incorporated, orders stocks (``Three thousand shares of Attaboy!''), leaps O. J. Simpson-style over luggage at an airport and speaks Russian to clients. But his round-the-clock schedule leaves him ``dog tired.'' He asks his human co-workers to recommend ways to relax, and his secretary, Ms. Bowsa, sends him on vacation to her niece's rural home. After several days of running on all fours, eating from a plastic dish and parading au naturel (rather than in a three-piece suit), Buckledown cheerfully forsakes his penthouse view for green acres. Shanahan successfully mates doggy puns and metaphors with his signature tall, thin, watercolor-and-ink caricatures. While Buckledown's transformation from type-A human to type-B hound seems a bit abrupt--he just doesn't seem the sort to take up residence in an outdoor doghouse--Shanahan offers an accomplished, mischievous parody of a timely topic. Ages 4-8. (May)