Mark, I want to thank you for your book! I wrote to you right after reading it, but didn’t send my letter in. My husband & I are avid fans of your show, so I decided after listening to some of your callers that I would submit my letter. We lost our beloved 14 year old Ian right before you lost Sprite. It was not a very Happy Thanksgiving 2006.Our son Bryan, brought Ian home as a puppy when he was working as a Water Instructor at a summer camp. We already had 2 dogs, Tiffany & Crescent, who were springer spaniel mixes.

They were litter mates, and Tiffany became Crescent’s seeing eye dog, when Crescent went blind at 7 years old. They accepted the new member of the family timidly, because Ian seemed to be growing daily! She was a shepherd husky beagle mix. Ian was our son’s dog, but when he graduated he started moving around, so mom & dad became Ian’s adoptive parents. Our son died suddenly in 1997, so Ian became our last physical link to our son. We dreaded the day we would lose her, because it would be like losing our son all over again. In the mean time, we dealt with losing Tiffany and Crescent, right before and right after our son died. Ian became more precious to us. We moved from the Midwest to the East Coast in 2003 to be closer to family.

Ian was doing fine until the last year of her life. She slowed down quite a bit due to hip problems, but her smile was still strong. We added a lab puppy to our family, so Ian took up mothering. Hemingway kept her on her toes, but knew when he was going over the line. He seemed to realize when she was tired or in pain. Animals are so smart. By Thanksgiving, Ian was in too much pain to ignore. She loved walks, but because of her arthritic hip, we didn’t keep her on a leash. She would walk along side of Hemingway and if it was too much for her, she would turn around and head home.

Unfortunately, she must have been disoriented and never made it home. We looked for hours. A neighbor found her 2 days later in a ditch. We rushed her to the hospital. The doctors took such good care of her, but she was just so tired and in pain. She looked at us smiled and gave us kisses. We felt it was her way of saying I love you, but I need my rest now. Hemingway was a little lost for a long time without Ian. We all grieved together.

Thank you Mark for letting me share my story. Thank you for sharing your expertise and knowledge of the Constitution and Politics, but especially for sharing your compassion and love of dogs.

Donna, Lloyd and Hemingway Eadie from MD