I am on a fixed income and have not been able to purchase your book yet. I intend to buy it as soon as I possibly can. My story is about a yellow lab rescued by my wife and her two sisters.

They were on their way to Grove, Oklahoma when they came upon a dog that had been hit by a car and was lying on the shoulder of the road. They loaded him into the car and rushed him to a veterinarian, who recognized the dog as one belonging to a local resident. They found out his name was Muscle and that he was in very bad shape. Both of his hips were broken, one ear was nearly torn off, and he possibly had internal injuries. The vet contacted the owner and explained the situation to her. She informed him that she could not afford the cost of treatment and asked him to put the dog down. My wife and her sisters immediately volunteered to assume the cost along with ownership of this dog.

This yellow lab took about a year to recover and I told my wife that I thought they were crazy to spend so much money on this animal. He had to be fed by hand and had to be carried outside to go to the bathroom. But eventually he did recover and came to live at our house permanently in 1998.

Muscle became quite the character over the years and was a loving and faithful dog. I became used to having him around and we enjoyed lots of play time and companionship, but I didn’t fully understand how attached I had become to him until last year. Muscle began to have difficulty eating and seemed to all of a sudden have trouble getting around. When the vet ran several tests on him, we found out that he had a malignant growth around his aorta and that there was nothing they could do for him. After struggling with the decision for a couple of days, we decided the humane thing to do would be to have him put to sleep. We took him to the vet’s and when we went into the room where the procedure was to be done, he looked up at us calmly as if he realized why were there and welcomed our decision. I helped him onto the table and my wife and I held him in our arms while the drugs were administered. We were both crying our eyes out as the spark in his eyes dimmed forever and he was gone.

I did not think that I could ever become that attached to any animal, but Muscle became my buddy and my best friend. I don’t think I will ever be able to get another dog, because I don’t think I could stand that much pain again. Muscle will forever be in my heart.

Kim from MO