Mark, I’ve never heard your radio show (but I’m going to look for you), I just LOVED Rescuing Sprite! What a wonderful story, and how you described your relationship with your dogs, any dog lover could relate perfectly. I got the book for Christmas, and am passing it along to other dog lovers in my office (whoops, that won’t help your book sales, and the sales benefits dog shelters). On second thought, I’ll suggest they buy it for themselves.
I felt the same way about Ruckus, half English Sheepdog, half Springer Spaniel. I miss him still after his death 14 years ago. You wrote an awesome book, you made me laugh and cry and remember. Thanks for sharing your dogs and your family.

Karen from IL

Mark,

I just finished your book and wanted to personally extend my sympathies to you and your family. On january 4, 2008, I too lost my most loyal companion, tyler. He was a 13 1/2 year old yellow lab that I had from the time he was 8 weeks old. I also struggled with the fact that I decided when, where and what time my best friend would pass away. Signing those papers haunted me for weeks. I miss my Tyler every single day. I have lost loved ones in my life, but this was by far the most painful decision and hardest thing I’ve ever done. Our home still feels so empty. We have his ashes and I look at the tin daily. We are not ready yet for another dog, but when we are, we will rescue one from a shelter. Honestly, I didnt think I would want another dog, but your book helped me realize that, yes, the joy and love they give us every single day, does override the sorrow we feel when they’re gone. Sprite was a very lucky boy to have such a wonderful family. Peace,

Peggy from NH

Mark
Thank you. I have been listening you for awhile as I drive home from work. I have been interested about your book “Rescuing Sprite”. I have three rescued dogs…Dakota a small fox looking dog, Gypsy the pure bred doberman and Buster the lab and spanial mix. Dakota came to me as a puppy only 6 months old 3 years ago. Buster now about a year was found hurt in the street here in El Paso not even a year ago. Gypsy was 6 or 7 abandoned and abused when she came here two years ago. The man who rescued her was being sent to Iraq and asked us if we could watch her. We said yes. This is the story about Gypsy. She came here with a short leg where the previous owner had broken it. The first few weeks you could not even get close to her because she was so skittish and scared. I tried to hug her one time and she replied in her own way…she bit me. In fact the first few weeks I was the recipient of 5 bites. But slowly Gypsy got love from me and my two roomies. She began to come close. Then getting petted was her joy. By last summer I had a bed full of dogs, Dakota by the small of my back…Buster and Gypsy on either side of my legs. Then Gypsy decided to lay by my chest. She began to lay sideways then upside down with her head on my chest. She wanted to be scratched. You know how dogs love that scratching that the back leg jumps. Well she loved it. Anyway to make a long story short, Gypsy is a loving dog now…and the sorrow is that she is beside me dying. She has terminal pneumonia, the vet came here today and said she will not survive. So I am writing this to Gypsy to say good bye. Tomorrow I will hold her in my arms, scratch her belly and send her to be with Sprite. I hope they play well together. She does have some attitude though. Thanks Mark

Ervin from TX

Last Nov. while driving for hours on the mainland my husband and I heard Mark talk about how he grieved for the loss of his dog, Sprite. As we listened we certainly related. knowing our nearly 12 yr old German shepherd, Panzer, would succumb to cancer and a nerve deficit in his hind legs in a matter of months.
We did lose him a month ago. It is getting better but we have cried and greived more for that dog than for relatives we’ve lost. He was such a great friend and as a therapy dog at a military hospital here in Hawaii he brought joy to so many over 8 years.
We loved that dog so much & he loved and trusted us totally. We understand the human animal bond and think it makes us better human beings having these great creatures in our families.

Donna from HI

I just read Mark Levin’s Rescuing Sprite, although I heard about it some time ago on Hannity & Colmes, and resolved at that time to read it. I don’t know a lot about Mark except for his appearances on Hannity & Colmes, but as a Sean Hannity fan I do agree with Mark politically and have always enjoyed his appearances on the show and learning about him.

That said, I loved his book, laughed and cried clear through it. As I read it, coincidences kept emerging that tied our stories together, and the similarities just kept accumulating and getting more and more bizarre as I read.

I currently live with my third dog and first cat. My first dog, a Border Collie/Sheltie mix I called Missy, was with me for 15 wonderful years, and I could write a book about our time together (I have recorded my memories of those times together). She began experiencing old age problems at 13, and after a stroke caused her health to rapidly decline, I had the greatest Frisbee dog and travel companion that ever lived put to sleep as I held her head, and buried her with her favorite Frisbee in the woods where she grew up. But it was my second dog, a Shepherd/Collie mix I called Buddy (and he really was my buddy), that so closely resembled Sprite’s story.

I rescued Buddy as a stray in the spring of 1999, when some folks down the road from my mother’s house on the Ohio River in Little Hocking, Ohio found him wondering the road (probably abandoned) and took him in while they looked for someone to care for him (they ran a country bed & breakfast and already had a full animal circus of their own). They knew I recently had put Missy to sleep, and had asked my Mom if I could care for Buddy. From the first moment I saw him, I knew he was a special dog. He was running circles around their monster Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Chester, and almost immediately greeted me with a kiss.

I took Buddy home and made an appointment with my vet, Clyde Alloway, who had cared for Missy for at least half of her life, when I wasn’t off with her in the Air Force chasing a military career that ended prematurely after 13 years when a speeding drunk driver rear-ended me at a stop light. This care included the beginning of her life when he saved her from the nearly-always fatal Parvo Virus. Clyde noticed right away that Buddy had a crooked leg, and on neutering Buddy, he told me that Buddy had one impacted testicle that hadn’t dropped but had to be removed from his abdomen. This made Buddy’s recovery from the surgery more difficult, and was the first sign that Buddy would need extra care.

Clyde told me that Buddy was 6-8 months old, and he acted like it. He loved to curl up in my lap and wrestle with me, moaning and groaning and talking like crazy. He had a strange gait in his rear end that was a little like a bunny hop (I actually did a pretty funny impression of this gait before I knew what it signified), and it was in Mark’s book when he mentioned this about Sprite that I got my first inkling we had more than a little in common. That bunny hop is peculiar to dogs with hip dysplasia, a generally hereditary condition that manifests itself before adulthood, though I didn’t know it at the time. (more…)

HI MARK,
I’D LIKE TO TELL YOU ABOUT MY TRAVELING COMPAINION,BART.I’M A LONG HAUL TRUCKDRIVER AND HAD STOPPED AT A TRUCKSTOP IN BARSTOW,CA WHILE ON MY WAY TO LONG BEACH,CA.I CAME OUT OF THE CAFE AND SAW A SMALL,SCARED LITTLE PUPPY JUST OUTSIDE THE DOOR.I BENT DOWN TO PET HIM,THEN WALKED OUT TO MY TRUCK TO HEAD DOWN THE HILL.I UNLOCKED THE DOOR AND LOOKED DOWN AND THE PUPPY WAS LOOKING UP AT ME AND WAGGING HIS TAIL.A FEW MONTHS BEFORE I HAD TO HAVE MY DOG PUT DOWN,AND I REALLY DIDN’T WANT ANOTHER,EVEN THOUGH I’VE ALWAYS BEEN A BIG DOG LOVER.BUT BEFORE I COULD THINK TOO MUCH ABOUT IT,I PICKED HIM UP AND PUT HIM IN THE CAB.THAT WAS IN LATE OCTOBER OF 1989,AND WE’VE BEEN TOGETHER EVER SINCE.WHEN I GOT HOME TO VIRGINA AND TOOK HIM TO THE VET,THE DOCTOR FIGURED HIS WAS JUST UNDER 1 YEAR OLD.WELL,NOW HE’S ALMOST 20 WITH OVER 2 MILLION MILES ON HIM ( I HAVE OVER 3 MILLION,BUT THIS IS ABOUT BART).HE’S GONE BLIND,AND HAS ARTHRITIS IN HIS LOWER BACK,BUT HE STILL GETS AROUND QUITE WELL,AND HIS DOCTOR IS ALWAYS AMAZED WHEN SHE SEE’S HIM.HE JUST HAD CHECK UP,AND ACCORDING TO THE VET,HE STILL HAS ALOT OF MILES LEFT.WE’VE BEEN ALL OVER THE U.S. AND CANADA,AND WHILE HE CAN’T SEE WHERE WE ARE,HE’S HAPPY TO BE ON THE ROAD.ONE REASON I’VE GOT SATELLITE RADIO WAS SO WE CAN LISTEN TO YOUR SHOW EVERYDAY.NASCAR WAS THE MAIN REASON,BUT YOU WERE A CLOSE 2’ND.

Steve from VA