My husband and I have been married for 23 years with no kids; we have owned two toy poodles, one passed at the age of 9, in 1989 and the other just recently on March 15, 2013.  I am the youngest of 9 and the only one with no children.  My siblings have always teased me, in a good way, of how my dogs were my children, they just had no clue.  I want to speak of my last dog, Peitro Romanus Bangs, Jr, aka, PJ.  He was born on May 3, 1989. As you may know he was our baby and the best friend we could have had.

PJ passed on March 15, 2013 and it was one of the hardest times of my life.  I wrote his obituary for Trap and Field on day 2 to help me cope, and also entered him to the Rainbow Bridge.  Then something hit me on day 8 of his passing; I remembered the book my brother gave me, “Rescuing Sprite”.  I went right to it, like I knew where it was all the time.  It was a Sunday and I read the entire book in one day.  I cried a lot but enjoyed it tremendously. I am not sure if my brother read it or not, and I can only assume he heard about it from Rush Limbaugh and/or your talk shows.  I had not heard of the book nor did I really know about it; but had an idea of how it was going to end up.  I must say reading it now; I am so grateful that I did NOT read it a year and a half ago.  There are so many similarities with PJ, Pepsi and Sprite it’s almost crazy. Pepsi and PJ were born the same year.

Mark you sure are right when you say people who have never owned a Dog, they just don’t not understand.

You said people tell those who lost a family member of the fur kind, “that you gave him the best life” but in reality “they gave us the best life”, you are so right, we are the lucky ones.

I decided to cremate PJ as I did not want to take the chance of losing him again if we should ever move, much like one of your listeners idea.  Like you, I miss everything about PJ, the mornings, coming home from work and missing his greetings, bedtime, our walks, chasing squirrels etc. Our every move they are there, finding toys, his blankets, clothes all over the house and in the vehicle’s, is really hard.

I thank you for your story and sharing your most precious moments with us.  Here is to all the animal lovers and rescuers in the world.

I will end with your best quote: “goldfish, turtles and hamster are pets, Dogs are family.

— Bernice from Laurel, MD