When our daughter’s wonderful yellow lab Goldie died, we gave a memorial donation to her church. Father Tom went out and bought and planted himself a yellow dogwood tree on the church grounds. Now when we worship in that place, we see the tree and remember our faithful and loving granddog. Recently our son lost his faithful Alice, a wonderful dog adopted from a shelter. We gave Peter your book to read in memory of Alice. The other night Pete’s 10-year old daughter called long distance to tell us she had taken the book before her parents could read it. She said it was a wonderful book even though it made her cry. Thanks, Mark.

Sarah from IL

This unfortunately will be a bit of an involved story…

Shortly after we were forced to put our beloved 4-year old cat, Klaatu, to sleep February 2004 (when we rescued him he had undetected feline leukemia that ultimately killed him), we decided to adopt again. Klaatu was an Oriental Shorthair and we love the breed’s personality, so we decided to try and get a pair of Oriental Shorthair brothers. They’re difficult to find, but we finally located a woman who had two younger half-brothers. When she arrived at our house it became obvious why she insisted on coming to us; the cats smelled of urine and both were put in the same small carrier for the 2 hour drive to our house. She admitted to having nearly fifty cats, and one of the boys, who she said had a simple eye infection, obviously had a more serious problem with his eye.

The boys were charming, and obviously we couldn’t let them go back with her, so we took them and named them Spinlock and Mutex, in tribute to our computer – geek side (Mutex is the one with the bad eye). They both had pneumonia, but that cleared up quickly and they settled in.

We love our boys and even took them sailing with us on our honeymoon. We have no children together yet, and they became a huge part of our lives. (more…)

Yesterday (12-5-07) was the worst day I can remember. Our beloved Maggie died suddenly. We learned in August that she had colon cancer. She had surgery and we were told that the margins were small and that chemo was recommended. My wife took her for her treatments. She handled them fairly well until after the second treatment she developed a kennel cough. Then they discovered that it had spread to her lungs. I was in denial. My wife was torn up and was really dreading the coming days and what Maggie would have to go through. Maggie was coughing bad for a week or two then she improved. She was running, barking and wallering on her back (she loved to do this). We were sure she would be here for Christmas and beyond. We have not left her alone since we found out about the lung cancer. Yesterday my wife was shopping and I took Maggie to the post office with me. She was fine when we left the post office. My wife called my cell at 4:16 and I told her Maggie was fine and we were heading home. (more…)

Mark

I have been with you since the beginning of your talk radio carrer. This book brought great pleasure to my wife,son and I. It also allowed me to hear you talk about the book on several of my favorite talk shows( Rush and Shaun). We have always had English Setters, for I love hunt with a beautiful bird Dog and love to watch them work. One day we got a phone call from friends of ours saying they found this dog and wanted to know if we could give it home. My wife always had notions of having a dog of her own and would not go nuts everytime I put a hunting coat on.We went over their house and was introduced to Mattie. he got this name because of the white M in her chest of black fur. Mattie was a throughbreed Heinz 57. My Vet could not even give me his best guess. Mattie had a rope burn on her neck and you could see her ribs. We brought her home and introduced her to Sandy our English Setter. They went nuts over each other. Mattie turned out to be the leader and protector of our family. She got Sandy to quite being a finicky eater. Because Mattie was starving when we got her, Sandy learned to eat her food or Mattie took care of the extras.I was walking Sandy on a lease when one of the neighbors dogs ran over and bit Sandy on the nose drawing blood. Sandy was wagging her tail and bent down to greet the dog when it attacked her. The dog did not see Mattie behind me. When Mattie heard Sandy yelp she sprung into action. The strange dog never came onto our prooperty again. I did stop Mattie before things got to bad. Mattie gave us many years of love and protetion. Even at fourteen when we thought was going to dieI paid a rediquis amount of money to have life saving surgery performed, Mattie lived with for seventeen years and she started to fail. When the time came my wife told me I had to do the deed. I took Mattie to the Vet. He agreed it was time. Mattie was slipping in and out. I held her in my arms. He said a doggy prayer that musy have come right from the Lord himself.She passed away in my arms. I went out to my car and started to sob. People passing by would see me and tears would well up in their eyes as if saying that they had been there to.

Mega Ditto’s because Your a great American and God bless you.

James from OH

Dear Levin Family,

I doubt my blog will be read, but I’m going to write one anyway. This is for my own heart that still agonizes over the death of my 15 year old golden/lab retriever I had to put down. It was a horrible thing I had to do, I still feel I didn’t have that right, but she suffered just like Sprite.

I bought Mark’s book last weekend while on a celebration trip of 30 years of marraige and walked in a book store in Coronado, CA. The first book that caught my eye was SPRITE… my hell, he looks like my dog Cody.
I couldn’t stop reading it, through tears and all, the story of MY LIFE was your book Mark, I loved it. It has inspired me to write my own story, though it would never be published, I’m not as wonderful and have connections like you do to get my book published.

May Sprite be at the Rainbow Bridge, where he will be there waiting for you one day, waiting to run, play walk and give you doggie kisses again. That’s what gives me comfort, knowing there IS A DOGGIE HEAVEN. I believe that a dog lover is a good person. You are a good person. Best wishes, love Teresa a huge dog lover.
By the way, I mauled and kissed every dog I met while visiting Coronado!

Teresa from UT

I just finished reading “Rescuing Sprite.” It took me back to the time when I was 9 years old and got a little black ball of fur for Christmas. I named him Jingles, he had a white stripe on his chest much like Pepsi, but Jingles was a Border Collie.
My 2 previous dogs had been hit by cars. So I prayed really hard that God would help this dog live to be very old. That he would be famous like Lassie. And that he would go to Heaven with me.

(The famous like Lassie part never happened). But he lived in the bossom of our family until he was almost 18 years old. My mom and dad had finally had him put down.  And that taught me to have faith that God, being the loving God that He is, would not be able to ignore the prayers of millions of children, as well as adults all over the world who have prayed that they will one day be with their beloved pets in eternity.

Jingles was so much a part of my life, as were Nicky and Bridget, and now Brandy. How could they not be part of my eternity.

Geri from TX