My wife and I had dogs when we were younger, but not since we were married 30 years ago. Now our four children are grown and the nest is becoming empty. Our thoughts are again turning to a dog, especially since we recently discovered photos of our long-ago pets and had such fond memories of them.

This saturday while driving home from a walk at the beach we decided to make an unscheduled stop at our local shelter just to see how it felt. We immediately fell in love with an 8 month old mix of terrier and dachshunt with the sweetest disposition. He was rescued from Virginia and made it to NY via a program called passage to freedom. A chain of volunteers drove him from VA to NY passing him to a new volunteer every few hundred miles. He is very sweet and has proven to be good with children, other dogs and cats. He is possessive of his food and is afraid of brooms which leads the shelter to think he was starved and possibly abused by a broom. We are currently undergoing our background check by the shelter to see if we are worthy of this dog and if all goes well he will join our family on tuesday. We are considering naming him Boci (italian for kisses) of Reagan…its still a toss up. I have attached a photo of him at taken when we met at our local shelter. I keep hearing your words in my head about adopting a rescue dog and we wouldn’t have it any other way. I will let you know when he arrives! Thank you Mark for leading us in this direction.

Bill from NY

I just wanted to write that I have finished reading Rescuing Sprite tonight. My husband gave me this book three Christmas’ ago. When I opened the present I said “I can’t read this”! I knew I would cry my eyes out and true to form I cried from the beginning of the book to the end, anticipating the inevitable. It is a very touching and beautiful little book – a tribute really.

I am so pleased to read of someone who feels the same as I do about animals. I read recently that if you love animals you must find out why. I think it must be the need, the innocence the pure love and devotion that comes especially from dogs. I’ve had dogs and cats, a wild bird, fish and hamsters. I currently have three cats, two siblings from a shelter and one stray. I would love to have another dog, it would be my last dog because I will be 65 years old in another week. My children and I had a Lhasa Apso that we adored. Her name was Tashi. She died many years ago and it was heartbreaking.

Thank you so much for caring for Sprite and Pepsi and for welcoming another dog into your life. I wish there were many more people like you.to care for all the lost and neglected animals.

Patricia from NY