Mark,

I really appreciate your love of your dogs. They need good people like you to take care of them.

I lost my beautiful little girl Cocoa two years ago today, Dec 9th, 2005. Her kidneys had been failing. We had for some weeks been giving her subcutaneous fluids to keep her alive.During the last weeks she would occasionally go into convulsions. Without going into too much detail, the end came when she simply stopped breathing. Two years later it is still emotional for me to write this.

She saved my wife’s life. During one of my deployments (I was in the Navy deploying on USS Florida in those days) my wife became seriously ill. Cocoa knew this and took care of her while I was gone. I am convinced that she saved my wife’s life and knew that she was doing it. Every morning she would ensure that my wife would wake up during a time when that may well have not happened. She was aggressive and would not let up until my wife was awake. If she had not done this I have no doubt that my wife would not have survived her illness.

Everyone who ever met her loved her immediately. Even the emergency animal hospital, on one night two weeks before she died when we had to rush her there they stopped in the middle of the night to take a group picture with her. They had never seen her before and normally an animal’s presence would have been just business. Not with Cocoa.

She was truly extraordinary.

I want to thank Mark for giving me the opportunity to write about Cocoa. I have many more stories about her and will perhaps be able to share them one day.

God bless you.

Michael from WA