AIRED: October 4, 2010– 3:00 pm PST
http://www.LaTalkRadio.com
TITLE: “Fixing Freddie, A Bad Dog Who Heals a Fractured Family ”
SPECIAL GUEST: Paula Munier, is Director of Acquisitions and Innovation for Adams Media, a veteran writer, editor, and publishing executive, and author or co-author of several books. A former reporter and content developer for newspapers, magazines, and book publishers, she has also worked for such media giants as Disney, Quayside, and Gannett.
Allen and his guest, Paula Munier discuss the aftermath of divorce and her efforts to create a stable home for her son and a new life for herself. At the heart of her family’s story is a plotline so true, so scientifically replicable that it makes a story about a bad dog who helps create a new family from the fragments of an old family seem unusual.
Fixing Freddie, of course, is just a metaphor. Munier’s ability to pick it up, try again, clean up the kitchen, be hopeful in a new relationship is only the back story. Her son Mikey’s relationship with Freddie is the uplifting part, the survival tale, complete with heroes and demons and new lands, new fears to be vanquished.
Set during her years as a single mom, “Fixing Freddie” is Paula’s hilarious, heartwarming and true story about her family’s relationship with a very, very bad beagle who became the family’s ultimate “life” teacher.
The puppy that destroys her kitchen cabinets, bites her dates, pees on her neighbors, and bays at the moon is her worst nightmare—and her son’s best friend. She tries everything to fix him—from obedience training and an animal behaviorist to contemplations of puppy Prozac and, well, fixing him. But nothing really works.
As her son, Mikey, grows up and prepares to leave home, Paula’s worst fear is that after more than thirty years of raising kids, she’ll be left all alone—with Freddie. But by the time Mikey graduates from high school, Freddie has howled his way into her heart—and earned a lifelong place in her empty nest.
