I read your book from cover to cover last night in a few hours. Once I started reading I could not put it down. I cried a lot, but I also smiled a lot, because I knew exactly what the love for a dog feels like. I had a mini schnauzer named Opie (named after Andy Griffith’s Opie). We had him for about 14 years. He had a heart condition for the last 3 years of his life. He took human heart meds and salmon oil every day. We kept him alive even after he had a few heart attacks. We were not going to give up on him. He had been such an important part of our family,that we were going to do all we could for him. After every heart attack, my husband and I would ask the vet if he was suffering and if we were just prolonging his life for our selfish reasons. She told us as long as he is still eating and drinking water, he is okay. She told us he would let us know when the time came to let him go. We would take him for walks twice a day, but they got harder and harder for him.

On a Friday in September of 2003, he let us know that he was ready to go and be with God in doggie heaven. My daughter and I took him to the vet and held him while the vet administered the drugs. We said our goodbyes and cried and cried for days. (more…)

I would like to tell you about a wonderful dog that my wife and I considered our son. My wife had him since she was 12 years old, we are now both 25. Like most dog owners I’m sure my bias comes out when I say he was one of a kind. A personality all his own I’m sure he though he was human. He was always very obedient and it was almost like he could understand what you were saying. We don’t plan on having kids so he was our baby and brought life to us and our home.

His name was Rocky, he was a border collie/german shepherd mix, he loved kids and smaller dogs, and loved being a dog. He was suddenly taken from us Sunday (1/13) morning around 2am. Earlier in the night he had been acting funny and my wife an I woke up around 2am to check on him. He was breathing funny and we decided to take him to the emergency clinic. Before arriving at the clinic he had passed away in the car. While at the house we told him how much we loved him and he was a good boy. I can’t believe he is gone. I’ve lost loved ones before, but I think this has been so much worse because he was so close to us physically and emotionally. I don’t know what else to say other than he is being so missed right now. You’re a good boy rocky.

Daniel and Elisia from FL

I just finished reading your book about Sprite. I was in tears as I read all your thoughts and feelings about losing Sprite. My husband and daughter suffered a similar loss when our beloved beagle, Jake, passed away on October 4, 2005. He had been figting a muscle tumoer and after 10 months of doing his best to survive, it just became unbearable for him.

We had to make that heart wrenching decision to let him go. It is a day that plays over and over in my mind all the time. I wasn’t ready to lose him. He was and always is with me. His love and faithfulness carried us through a devastating miscarriage, loss of my husband’s father and repeat illesses with my own father. Jake was always waiting for us, waiting to offer us his love by snuggling in next to us, licking the tears off our faces and listening to all we had to say. The conversations may have looked one-sided but I knew he understand everything I said to him. He knew when to comfort us and when to make us laugh as he often did when racing around the house or the yard. After his passing, the Vet sent us a wonderful card called “The Rainbow Bridge”.

Jeanne from NY

I just finished your book last night and it was a wonderful read and it had me crying more than once. I know EXACTLY what your family went through. To say that my family are animal lovers would be an understatement. Currently we have 6 dogs and 5 cats not to mention the 4 or 5 outdoor kitties who have adopted us. And we have close to 20 cats and dogs who are buried in our own pet cemetery. Animals that I loved tremendously from the time I was a small child through my adulthood. I am proud to say that all of them lived a long and joyful life and died of old age except for one dog that was unfortunately hit by a car when my brother didn’t secure the fence gate properly. Some of them we had to make the difficult decision to put them out of their misery and it was a hard thing tod o. And I cried like a baby over EACH of their deaths, however, the joy and fond memories that I have of each one of them by far make it all worth it. Thank you for writing such a wonderful book and for being an animal lover as well.

Tina from OK

I have just finished your book about Sprite. It was sent to me because I am walking the same path you did with Sprite. I know by now you must have heard this so many times BUT trust me I have been weeping for days, nites and weeks. My friend sent it to me hoping it would help me as I walk journey with my Jessie-she a 15 year old yellow lab we adopted through PAWS when she was no longer wanted by the family babysitter! So by the grace of God we got this blessing at 9 weeks old and have been through so much with her-Trips to the Univ of PA Vet Hospital-Cornell Univ Vet hospital. Seven operations-both acl replaced-Addisons-9 pills a day and all the other little things that could go wrong in a loved ones life.

And in the end I wouldn’t have any other dog ever. She has saved me so many times from overwhelming family issues, been there through deaths, illness and all that life sends you. No one and nothing has ever comforted me the way my Jessie did. She needs a decision from us and I am not yet ready to give up, knowing we are indeed there. I read your book about the moment you get the look, have the feeling and will just know? Please help me help her, help me love her enough to say its all ok to go. I too have prayed the prayer you did….Lord PLEASE come and take her come softly, gentle and wrap her in your love and embrace her till I too can see her once again. But my Lord has not taken her and I continue to battle. (more…)

First off, I’d like to say that I have never been as touched by a book as I was by “Rescuing Sprite”. I’ve read everything from fantasy to historical non-fiction, and though I will laugh out loud in the middle of the library at the humor, I rarely cry when reading. This story had me in tears, both joyous and sorrowful, almost the entire time. Thank you, Mark, for writing such a beautiful book. I think it reflects the joy, love, devotion, fears, and pain all dog-lovers experience in the short time we are blessed with our furry friends, and for myself in particular it has helped heal my own hurts more than the years have. It’s a comfort to know there are people who feel just as deeply about their dogs, in both having them and losing them.

I have had dogs all my life, from the time I was a blip in my mother’s womb to this very day. The first was Gunner, who I was too young to remember. Archy was the next and the longest, perhaps the most loved in all of my family because my siblings and I grew with him. Of all ours dogs, he was the sweetest and the most human. We had the misfortune of putting him to sleep when he was ten due to stomach cancer, before which he lived three years longer than predicted with no indication of his illness. A year after Archy we bought Remington, the ‘gray dog’ and my ‘moose’ (he happily answers to both), who still lives with my parents today, and two years after Remie we got Ruger. My Ru.

Ruger was my dog. When my father, grandfather and I drove four hours to pick him up and bring him home, it was my lap he slept in the whole ride, and my grandfather on who he vomited minutes after I relinquished him. Albeit gross and funny, I think I always took that as a sign between Ru and I, and he must have too, for I was the one to which he attached himself. Ru was 1½ when I started college four hours away in Ohio. At first, the only sadness came in that I was unable to see my dogs while at school, but after a summer in New York (Buffalonian by birth, my parents now live in WV) and only a short visit to my house before the new fall semester, Ruger began to run away from my mother at night. (more…)