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. Read the rest of this entry »

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

I read your book on my way to Chicago yesterday. I’m a huge animal lover, in fact I have 2 dogs and 3 cats currently. As I read about Sprite’s illness, it really hit home for me. In 2005, I had to put to sleep my siamese cat, Kimmy. She had exactly the same type of tumor that Sprite had. Kimmy too had the indentation around her eye. She went blind in one eye on the same side as the tumor. My veterinarian wanted to remove her eye and remove the tumor. That would only prolong her life for a matter of a couple of months. I decided to make her as comfortable as possible until her final day. I too struggled when the right time to put her asleep was. She became even more affectionate and wouldn’t leave my side, so it made even more hard to know when the right time was. One day I came home to her turning around in circles. It broke my heart completely. By the end of that week, she was not my Kimmy anymore, She had no idea who I was and her turning in circles got worse. That Saturday, I made the call to my vet and brought her in. The whole car ride, she just spun around in her carrier. As I held her when my vet administered the first shot, she couldn’t relax. Her mind would not let her and it was so sad to see her in that state. I knew I made the right decision for her. After your reading your book, my guilt for putting her to sleep, lessened. It was comforting to read that someone else made the same decision I did. Thank you for writing this book! It’s so awesome to know so many other people have the same compassion and love for animals as I do.

Michelle from MI

JUST FINISHED READING “RESCUING SPRITE”, WITH ALOT OF TEARS AND TISSUES. I TO CAN RELATE AS IN NOVEMBER OF 2004 I LOST MY BELOVED WEIMARANER, BRANDY TO CANCER. SHE WAS JUST SHY OF HER 10TH BIRTHDAY AND I REMEMBER THAT DAY LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY. I LIVE WITH CHRONIC PAIN AND SHE WAS MY JOY MY STENGTH AND I MISS HER EVERYDAY. SHE KNEW WHEN I WAS HAVING A BAD DAY AND SHE ALWAYS MADE LIFE MUCH BETTER. WE HAVE A GOOD FRIEND WHO IS A VET AND HE CAME TO OUR HOUSE THE SUNDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING AND PUT HER TO SLEEP WHILE MY HUSBAND AND I HELD HER IN OUR ARMS. HOW BLESSED WE WERE TO HAVE HER, SHE ALWAYS WAS A PUPPY UNTIL THE LAST FEW MONTHS OF HER LIFE. THANKS FOR THIS WONDERFUL BOOK AND SHARING IT WITH ALL OF US OTHER DOG LOVERS. I KNOW THAT TONIGHT I WILL HUG MY 3 PUPPIES I HAVE NOW A LITTLE LONGER AND THANK GOD FOR THEM. GOD BLESS YOU AND YOUR FAMILY AND GIVE PEPSI AND GRIFFEN A HUG FOR ME.

Cindy from WV

Last night we lost our precious little lop-eared bunny, Owen during an operation to remove a facial abscess. My husband, two children and I are devastated.
We got him as a baby and from the day we brought him home he gave us nothing but love. We nicknamed him ‘Sweetness’ like Walter Payton because of his sweet and gentle disposition. Rabbits can be grumpy as our past rabbits often proved, but not Owen. He was kind to everyone and loved by all including the vets and staff at the animal hospital where he became a regular in recent days.
Every morning he would greet us with great enthusiasm, halfway hanging out of his cage until we gave him pets and ‘shmooches’ on the nose. We loved to give him parsley –‘bunny candy’ we called it, because he devoured it with such gusto. However, he thought it was more important to enjoy our affection rather than eat his treat, so he always waited until we stopped loving on him before diving in.
Bunnies are wonderful pets, especially the dwarf lop-eared variety. The things they do are hilarious and Owen entertained like no other bunny. His happy kick-flips around the family room, his cute, fastidious ear and face grooming rituals with his little paw ‘instruments’, his sudden flops onto his side when a nap crossed his mind, all gave us reason to stop whatever we were doing and watch with amusement. His curiosity for undiscovered places in the house got him into mischief and he knew it! The only time he tried to avoid us was when he was ‘out of bounds’ in the house, so the chase was on to catch him and when we finally did it was only because he let us. He would stop running and just sit there until we picked him up and put him back in his space.
Life will be different as of today and it’s a very sad time for us. I wanted to share this story because I know there are others out there, especially Mark Levin who understand this kind of loss and can sympathize.
Thank you Mark for giving me this forum to say something about my ‘third child’, you are an amazing man and I look forward each night to hearing your brilliance and humor come through my radio.

Lisa from CA