From the Introduction: We didn’t need a dog. We had a perfectly nice dog named Shakespeare, a big, loveable, huggable shaggy black mutt from the pound. And a cat, a beautiful tabby named Isis. We were a family—me and the dog and the cat and Mikey, my youngest child and the only one left at home. His siblings were grown and gone. His father was just gone. When I finally scraped up the money to buy a little house, Mikey reminded me that it was time for the puppy.“What puppy?” I didn’t do puppies.“‘When we get a home of our own,’ you said. You promised,” insisted Mikey. You promised—the two words in the English language most likely to bring a single mother to her knees.We didn’t need a dog. We certainly didn’t need a beagle. And we most certainly didn’t need Freddie.There are bad dogs--and then there are bad beagles.In this hilarious and heartwarming memoir, single mother Paula Munier takes on the world's worst beagle--and loses every time. She tries everything to fix Freddie--but nothing really works. As her youngest son grows up and prepares to leave her soon-to-be empty nest, Paula's worst fear is that after more than thirty years of raising kids, she'll be left all alone--with Freddie.
