Mark Levin, I can understand if you don’t want to post this story. It’s not the story anyone wants to hear or one that am I proud of telling. This is the first time I have actually put it in writing.

Whenever I hear Mark Levin talk about Sprite and his dogs or others’ dogs I can’t help but change the station. Not because I don’t like dogs, but because I can’t bare to remember my childhood experience. Growing up I never knew anyone who never had a dog or two.

I don’t have a dog right now and I don’t know when I’ll ever have one again. I’ll play when one here or there but that’s about it.

Here’s my short story:

I was about 16 years old and living on the island of Jamaica. My father and I lived in a duplex (house joined together side by side). Us on one side and our landlord on the other. Our landlord had about 3 dogs. Without hesitation we would give them food from our table and play with them. The landlord welcomed it and had no problem with that until I got a dog of my own.

In my zest I was planning to have 3 dogs, Rygan, Sygan and Tygan. This pup was so sweet and cute and dear. He had the shiniest brown coat I’ve ever seen on a puppy. I named him Sygan. I would anxiously come home from school to see him. Even before I get through the gates this little pup would already try to jump out of his skin to greet me. I learned so much about caring and life just by having him. I don’t really remember how old he was when I had him or for how long I had him. However…

One day I came home from school and I felt something strange in the air. There was no greeting. I searched the yard and nothing. I asked my neighbors, nothing. The landlord, nothing. I even searched the neighborhood, behind the houses, nothing. Finally my father came home and saw me crying and did his best to help me search. Then we both found him in total shock and amazement. It wasn’t a happy ending.

There was a trench, or what we call “gully” which ran behind the houses. This takes water from the houses out of the town. It was about 4 feet deep with rocks and tree branches and rubble and rubbish. There was Sygan with what appeared to be tied to him a rock. Some unsinful wretched soul tied a rock to him and threw him in the gully.

Jamaica’s laws are quite different from America’s. No remedy could be ascertained by going to the police. I have my suspicion, however, that it was my landlord because when I got Sygan I stopped playing with and giving food to his dogs. I don’t know why someone would do such a thing. But at age 16 I vowed never to have a dog again. Even now as I write this 24 years later I am it drives me to tears.

There are somethings a man can’t get over. THAT is one of them.

Thomas from NJ