Mark,

I received a signed copy of your book as a Christmas gift from my boss. He does know me well. I cried the entire time I was reading it as it brought back all the painful and guilty feelings I had when I had to put my Molly down 6 years ago. She was a beautiful German Shorthair Pointer. I knew the owner of her parents so I was able to go see her from day 1. I actually picked her out at 3 weeks old and spent the next 4 weeks going over to visit or bringing the whole group to work to socialize them (6 in the litter). My husband picked Remington out at 5 weeks.

On Thanksgiving day 1996, the same day we moved into our first house we brought the little snuggle pups home. For five years Molly drove me crazy, scared me to death and damaged or destroyed anything she could get her teeth into. I could not have loved her more. Shortly before her 5th birthday she began having lameness in her backend. Each episode would be worse than the one before. Finally one morning she went out for potty and could not stand back up. The fear and confusion in her eyes broke my heart. I knew I would finally have to let her go. I still to this day wonder if there was something else I could have done. Was I not a good enough mother and how could I have let her down so badly. It took months for Remington and I to accept it. I adopted Ping after 2 years. She is a younger sister to Rem and Molly and she helped patch the hole in my heart. I adopted Bella the Boxer last November and now my hands and heart are pretty full again. Thank you for a wonderful book and letting me see that other people go through and deal with the same emotions when making such a difficult decision. Big woofs from Remington, Ping and Bella to Pepsi and Griffen.

Angie from MT