Lucky Dog

Dave Bartok is not having the best of years. His mother has just died, he is an addicted poker player, and (hugely in debt), his real estate business is sinking, and he doesn't really like his longtime girlfriend. When he gets saddled with an abandoned dog, he doesn't think things can get worse. And then Reg the dog starts talking --and only Dave can hear him. At first Dave thinks he's gone crazy, but he soon realizes he's found his soul mate. Dave and Reg start off on a madcap adventure that will find them tangled up with the mob, involved in an illegal real estate deal, cleaning up at the poker table, and stumbling toward true love. The wisdom of Reg the dog: On couches being chewable because they are actually sausages ''It's got a skin, it's got stuffing, what am I not getting here?'' On entering a dangerous establishment ''Actually, I've changed my mind. There's no atmosphere so menacing it can't be banished by a ham sandwich.'' On Dave's awful girlfriend ''She wants so to be pack leader. She acts as if she's in control when you're there, you defer to her all the time. Would it not be better if she were allowed to go and form her own pack?'' On neckties ''Every time you put it on you end up going somewhere you don't want to. That's what I call a leash.''