I don’t know when I will get a chance to get my copy of your book, but I’m going to have to read it for the dreaded day when I will actually lose my dog Freckles.

You have to understand something that makes my story with “Freckles” that is more painful even though “Freckles” is still alive.

For starters “Freckles” while he has been getting old (he’s 13 years old now) he seemed to be in good health until a couple of months ago when my roommate woke me up and said they thought Freckles had a stroke or something because he was walking around and acting weird.

For the next couple of hours I went through the Hell you went through with Sprite because I was debating if the Vet told me that it was something horrible I would have to put him to sleep (fortunately the Vet thought it was an orientation problem and given a couple of weeks he appears to be normal again). You see while those emotions ran through me a second set of emotions that had been burried for a long time resurfaced.

Mark I didn’t go and buy Freckles. I didn’t go to a pound and get Freckles. It wasn’t even my own decision to let Freckles enter my life. Back in May 1994 our family was hit by the horrible tragedy of my Mom unexpectedtly passing away while she had taken a trip. What made the shock worse was me and my two sisters had basically mentally prepared ourselfs for dad to pass away first because at one time during the two previous years he had been told six months to live.

And while my dad loved the thought of a dog in the house he had honored a promise where there will be no more dogs after the last dog Spunky because of health problems my Mom had. Naturally dad announced (at least he waited until after we burried Mom) that he was getting a dog.

Mark think how silly this is. A man who had been told at one time he had six months to live buying a dog. He went and bought a four month cocker spaniel puppy which a friend of his who saw the puppy suggested freckles since
he had brown spots all over his white fur.

Unfortunately my Dad’s health finally and dramatically fell apart just a couple of months later and he died August 1994.

So along with the house I inherited “Freckles” So you can understand the second set of pain here. Not only are the horrible thoughts of losing “Freckles” it’s resurfacing the pain of the loss of Mom and Dad.

You know Freckles is very loyal. When I go to be on the computer he will just happily lay on the floor and sleep in the room. He’ll jump in bed with me. He has one fault, if you’re not careful he’ll steal human food because he likes human food much better than dog food.

One day just before my Dad died I had moved to the living room of the house to be on the same floor as my Dad to help him. I had just heated three pieces of pizza and sat down at a table I had setup when I heard “Walter” My dad needed some ice cream so I got up and got him some ice cream. I came back and if you can picture this scene you’ll just laugh.

There was the six month old puppy standing on my chair with his back legs, leaning on the table with his front legs, eagerly eatting my pizza. When I stop staring at what he’s doing he turns and flashes me an innocent look, “Thanks for the pizza”

Thanks for helping me to feel better and prepare for that dreaded day that will come hopefully a long time in the future.

Walter from MN