Bobbie Pyron: Fido and Friend in Five: Brenna & Fozzie!

Bringing Fozzie Home

Any writer worth their salt (or dog biscuits) will tell you that one of the unsung, behind-the-scenes heros of any writer's book is the copyeditor. These are the most patient, detail-oriented folks you'd ever want to meet. They make sure there are no typos, factual errors, or embarrassing misspellings and punctuation. Sometimes we (lovingly, of course) refer to them as the Grammar Police, but we'd be in big trouble without them! I was so lucky to have the lovely and talented Brenna Franzitta as my production editor for A Dog's Way Home. Brenna has been a copyeditor since 2003, and a production editor at HarperCollins. And lucky for me, Brenna loves her work. Says she, "I really like that I not only get to read all the books I work on, but I also oversee all the stages that the book goes through, from manuscript from to finished product." She was so patient and respectful to work with. I was happy when, during our editing process, Brenna got a puppy! So let's meet Brenna and that cute little Fozzie (I mean really, is there anything cuter than a golden retriever pup?)

1. How did you and that cute little Fozzie find each other? After many years of wanting one and having moved to an apartment on the ground floor with outdoor space, my husband and I decided the time was finally right to get a dog. A puppy, in fact! Having grown up with a golden retriever in upstate New York, a family friend referred us to a well-known and well-respected golden retriever breeder whose dog was expecting a litter of puppies in the fall. When the time finally came, we traveled five and a half hours by car to pick up our little eight-week-old Fozzie Franzitta on Sept. 26, 2010. And from that day on, our lives changed forever in the best possible way!

2. What makes your dog's tail wag? Oh, what doesn't make his tail wag?! Fozzie loves life. His favorite part of the day is when I get home from work--he virtually throws a party, he's so excited! He also loves, in no particular order: people, children, squirrels, the park, "cookies", his favorite stuffed animal, Zebra, bananas, his mom and dad, his best friend (and fellow GR) Shelby, and of course, tennis balls!

3. What's your all-time favorite dog story? I don't think I can pick just one. But I will say of the many dog books I've read, I loved Bliss to You: Trixie's Story, Marley and Me, Old Dogs Are the Best Dogs, and A Dog's Way Home (and I'm not just saying that because I worked on it--it's a fabulous book!)