Peter Zheutlin will present “How My Life Went to the Dogs” Sunday, Aug. 11, at 11 a.m. for the Monadnock Summer Lyceum at Peterborough Unitarian Universalist Church, 25 Main St. 

A freelance journalist, novelist and once-reluctant dog owner, Zheutlin held off his family’s requests for a furry friend by adopting pet turtles, fish and even owning a cockatiel named Houdini for 10 years. However, in 2012 his resistance evaporated when Albie, a rescue Lab who had survived five months in a Southern kill shelter, became “the love of my life, the apple of my eye and every other cliché. I fell hard.” 

After graduating from Amherst College, earning a law degree from Boston College Law School, practicing law a few years and teaching legal research and writing at Northwestern University of Law and University of Virginia Law School, Zheutlin traveled to Oslo as part of the delegation to receive the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

Since adopting Albie, he has authored the New York Times best-seller “Rescue Road: One Man, Thirty Thousand Dogs and a Million Miles on the Last Hope Highway,” “Rescued: What Second-Chance Dogs Teach Us About Living With Purpose.”  John Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley” inspired him to write “The Dog Went Over the Mountain: Travels with Albie: An American Journey.”

Zheutlin lives with his wife, author Judith Gelman, in Massachusetts and continues to advocate for rescue dogs. Additional rescue dogs that followed Aldie were Salina, Tot and Jamba (short for Jambalaya).  

Moderating the program will be Kathleen Collinsworth, the executive director of the Monadnock Humane Society for the last eight years. Before that, she was president of the Monadnock United Way and executive director of Stonewall Farm. She and her husband live in Keene with their dog Hunter.

McGettigan & Gilbert will perform at 10:30 a.m.

People who cannot attend the program can watch at monadnocklyceum.org.