Losing a dog is so hard, I feel everyone’s pain as I read their stories. I have often wanted to call in to the show when you were talking about Sprite but I would never make it through my story without breaking down. We had a great black lab named Lindy. She was 18 years old. My oldest son had known her almost all his life since he was 22, He had been a very patriotic all of his life and wanted to go into the Army, He also had suffered from depression. He refused to take medication for it since he could not enlist if he was on the medication,

He did enlist and shortly before he was to leave for boot camp he asked if we could have Lindy put down before he left, She was failing quickly and he wanted to be there for her and not away at camp when it happened.

Before John left for camp, he had some things go wrong in his life that he could not handle and he ended his own life. I really did not think that I was going to survive this and I didn’t really think that I even wanted to. Shortly after John’s death, Lindy fell doen the deck stairs one night and was in so much pain that it was obviously time for her to join him. I sat up with her all night waiting for the vet to open and crying, telling her it was all right, to go be with John. About 5 am, she died.

This was all almost too much to bear. We had not even begun to recover from John. After about 6 months, I knew that my other kids and I needed something to help us out and give us something new to think about, Along came Dugan. He is the most wonderful, playful, and happy dog. He brought some laughter back into our house. I will always love him for that and he will always have a special place in hy heart.

Kathy from OH