I just wanted to give my sympathy to the Levin family. I read about Sprite and cried through most of the book. Less than a year ago, we lost our girl Misty. We took her in when her previous owner had passed on. She was up there in years, we think around 10 when she came to live with us. In our time with us she was attacked by a porcupine and had to have surgery to remove quills from the roof of her mouth. She went totally blind. And she was so trusting of me that she would run next to me as long as I called her name so she could hear where to go. She had partial paralyzation in her face and wasn’t able to blink so we had to giver her eye drops every day so her eyes wouldn’t dry up. She also ended up with an abcess from a tooth that fractured. But through all of her problems she was the sweetest dog with no complaints.

I struggle to this day with wondering if we should have put her down but she didn’t seem to be suffering. She died in her sleep the day after we got back from a week of camping with her. I thank God she got that last vacation and that she was able to die at home. I agree that the pain will never go away, just become more tolerable. We have since adopted another dog from the shelter and he is helping to heal the pain. Thank you Mark for sharing your story. She was a mix of Husky and German Shepherd. Unfortunately my digital photo program is not working so I can’t share a picture of her.

Kristine from WI