Two’s a crowd when you’ve been top dog.

Ollie was just about cured of his basketcase habits; the neurotic lurcher at last appeared to have his paws planted firmly on the ground (well, almost). But did Stephen Foster take a well-earned rest? Not. He decided one thing was missing from Ollie’s life, someone who could really understand him, a friend with whom he could have dog-to-dog chats. If you must get another dog get a girl, the experts told Foster. So he got a boy, a pure-bred Saluki lunatic called Dylan. As soon as the new puppy peered through the door, Ollie threw his master a look of contemptuous disbelief that said, ‘I refuse to have anything whatsoever to do with this. You’re on your own, pal.’

The riotously funny Along came Dylan takes up where Foster’s bestselling Walking Ollie left off, but instead of one canine conundrum, he’s got two: Dylan, the outlaw, proves to be virtually untrainable; Ollie, feeling threatened, becomes increasingly antisocial, and Foster is caught in the middle wondering why man’s best friends can’t just be friends.