Your story of sprite inspired me to tell you mystory of the finest dog i ever had. in the early ’70’si had a friend who had a purebred male akita, a beautiful powerful dog who had a next door neighbor with a purebred german shepherd female. well you can imagine the rest! they could not separate them even with a high fence. the owner did not want the mixed bred puppies so they were given away,we took one of the females and she quickly became my 3 young childrens favorite. beautiful , stong and fiercely protective of the entire family.

One day when the local trash truck had come down our street we heard a terrible screaming sound and we soon realized our “kinojo” which means “she or female” in japanese had been hit. She never liked the trashmen and i believe they deliberately hit her. her only wound was confined to her l. front paw but it was so severe the skin had been ripped off the top of the entire paw. my son and i took him to myfriend jack a vet in damascus,md. jack s diagnosis was not good, it was so severe there was not enough tissue to close the wound. “you should consider putting her down” he said. we pleaded for an alternitive and finally jack said he would call his friend at the u fo penna vet school for advice. they said if we could get her there they would try to treat her. i knew exactly where the school was since i had grown up at 49th and girard ave,a few miles from the school so the next am my son and i left for the 3 hour drive to phila,penna. what they did was extaordinary! they opened her side and positioned her paw there for three weeksand when a blood supply had formed and healing had taken place theycut the paw free and aside from the long stomach hairs now covering her paw she was good as new(although she never gave up her hatred of trashtrucks!).

After 3 weeks my son and i again made the trip back to phila. what a reunion! kinojo was skin and bones,they told us that she stopped eating and most have thought we abandoned her but when she saw us coming down the hall she took off and surrounded us with such emotion.we took her home to maryland (she was about 1 yr old at the time) and for the next 13 years she was the best, loyal ,protective, the best watchdog, yet extremely affectionate. the hardest part that every dog lover hates to face was having the decision to end a pets life when finally the dog is in such pain with no medical solutionthat you are being selfish to prolong her life. the morning i took her to the vet though 30 odd years ago still brings tears. the vet said if you want i’ll dispose of her but i said no and took her and buried her at the rear of our property along with cats, hamsterand other family pets but there could never be a replacement gor a wonderful mixed breed dog like our “kinojo”

Tony from MD