Character Analysis
Paulsen bought Fred as a puppy outside a bookstore from a child grafter who tried to fleece him for $50. (The kid got $5.) "Half Lab and half something" (7.9), Fred immediately bit Paulsen, setting the stage for what would become a lifelong career of mischief.
Paulsen named Fred after a human friend who had recently passed away (which gives us a pretty good idea of how highly Paulsen thought of dogs). Dog Fred honored his memory by raising heck at every opportunity.
At home I took the pup out of the box and into the house, where he promptly peed on the floor and tore a hole in a couch cushion, spilled trash all over the kitchen floor, ripped open two bags of beans and rice in the pantry, dismembered a doll that a neighbor's daughter had left, ate the laces and tongues out of four shoes (but only the left shoe of each pair), absolutely destroyed a vacuum cleaner someone had foolishly left in the same closet as the shoes, and stuck my wife's cat, Matilda, almost permanently onto the ceiling. (7.21)
That rampage really set the tone. Fred was almost "nuclear in his capacity for destruction," but he was a good-natured animal (7.23). Sorta like this guy.
Fred's BFF
Fred was "wonderfully happy" (7.23), and also wonderfully fat. "He was as devoted to eating as he was to finding things to destroy," Paulsen writes (7.24). So it only made sense that his best friend was Pig (who was an actual pig, not a dog). Fred would stop by Pig's trough for a bite to eat, and eventually they became so close that they hung out every day and slept cuddled up together at night.
Fred is another dog in Paulsen's life whose profile is more about funny stories than important milestones or life lessons. Fred's best story was about his epic battle with an electric fence that was meant to keep him and Pig out of the family's vegetable garden. Fred's appetite for destruction teamed up with his appetite for food, and he went to war with the fence. He nearly electrocuted himself to death, but ultimately, he won. Fred: 1, Electric Fence: 0.
It's easy to see why Paulsen loved this chubby little charmer.