People Who Like Dogs Like People Who Like Dogs

<p><b>''Anyone who has ever walked a dog and found themselves falling into conversation with others doing the same will love this funny, charming and touching book'' RORY CELLAN-JONES<br></b><br>Ostensibly, Nick Duerden is a cat person, and so the acquisition of a family dog in his late-40s takes him by surprise. The border terrier, Missy, is in part a therapeutic aid - the idea being that she''ll get Nick out of the house after a long period of ill health, and back into the wider, sociable world. <br><br>Unexpectedly, it works. There can''t be many opportunities in midlife to suddenly find yourself connecting with both hopeful young actor types and widowed octogenarians, a verbose existentialist Russian dissident and a stoned martial arts enthusiast, a bulldog with a basketball and a self-proclaimed animal mystic, but this is precisely what Missy, and the daily walk round the park, provides. (Incidentally, she saves marriages, too.)<br><br><i>People Who Like Dogs Like People Who Like