This extract is from my memoir, coming in the summer! The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man’s. -Mark Twain   For years I told my wife I wanted a dog. She repeatedly said no. I felt ambivalent myself, as it was so long since I’d had a dog. I worried something bad might happen; when I had had to part with two dogs because I didn’t have an adequate home for them. Now that we had a large house on Cape Cod with a yard and I worked next door to my home, it seemed the perfect time. But what kind of dog?…