As I was reading your book I took a look back when I had my dogs Lady and Trixie, who was the cutest beagle you ever saw, with her big floppy ears.

Well Lady who I thought ran away when I was young but I found out a few years ago she was hit by a car and died. My parents decided not to tell me b/c it would be too hard. But it was actually harder to find out about it now; I was so upset and told my parents my anger with them. Lady would always sleep at the foot of my bed and when I came home from school was so happy and would wait by the door b/c she knew I would take her for a long walk. She was a great dog, we had her for a long time.

As for Trixie, all my friends and family adored this dog. The worst part is that we had to leave her all alone in the house when we left for school and work. She didn’t like it at all and would start hiding from us in the mornings and snip at us b/c she knew she would be alone. It wasn’t b/c she didn’t love us , it was b/c she didn’t want to be alone and I didn’t blame her. I would always spend as much time as I could with her when I was home. But it got too much on us and Trixie, we felt so bad that we would have to leave her all the time, we had to give her up to a shelter to find a family that wouldn’t leave her alone a lot. My mother couldn’t even get the strength to bring her to the shelter, so my Grandfather and I had to do it. I wouldn’t let her go when we got there and started to cry. My Grandfather, an old ww2 vet, had to pry her from me and he brought her in; I was devastated. For the next week we kept in touch with the shelter to see how she was doing and if anyone adopted her her b/c we were worried. Within weeks a family from upstate with a lot of land adopted her and they said it was a very loving family, they really couldn’t say much b/c of privacy, which we understood. I can only hope she was taken in to a family like yours!

Great book!!
Rich (Mark’s Producer)