I’ll confess right now that I find a lot of novels about dogs a bit tedious. The “dog enters a person’s life and teaches him/her about life, love, and how to laugh” formula has got to be one of most shopworn stories around. So when I picked up my review copy of Pukka: the Pup After Merle by Ted Kerasote, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It sat in the “to be read” pile for a much longer time than it should have, and that was a huge mistake. I should have started it the minute it arrived.