Dear Mark,

I’ve listened to you while driving with your dog Sprite, and am sorry for your loss. I always wanted to talk to you but didnt, to know when is time, to put your dog to rest.
December 19, 2007 11:00pm i layed my dog Cody to rest, of 13 years he was lab/husky at the end his coat was as when he was first born. I too am having a very difficult time today one day later adjusting to not seeing him, not hearing him and the pain suffering did i do the right thing. My wife and i lay on the floor in the vets office before he was injected with the needle and cryed and understand now your loss.

Thank You for your story, it got me ready for my Cody knowing someone else has a Big Heart For Animals.

Sincerely,

Bill from NY

My story is a story of the sequence of three dogs – a trinity and how they each touched my life at its lowest and escorted me into manhood.

I got the first dog, Junior, on my fifth birthday, February 2, 1959. At the time, all my neighborhood friends were one year older than I was, so while they were at school, it was only Junior and me. My mother was preoccupied with my 2 and 3 year old sisters and I was pretty much left to my own – with Junior.

We wandered down Westbrook Road, which had not been paved yet to the Pearl River and through the woods along the way. I knew I wasn’t supposed to go where I went, but I imagined Junior to be God’s servant to protect me from everything. I did not understand everything being discussed at church and Sunday School – and that seemed to fit in with what I did understand and it certainly fit in with my observations.

Fifteen years later, I was at college. I wasn’t enjoying it the way most people do. I was depressed. After Christmas, I took Junior to college with me. I lived in the basement apartment of Arthur Guyton’s childhood home. As an aside, Arthur Guyton contracted polio and subsequently went on to invent the electric wheelchair – so this was not the kind of place conducive to feeling sorry for one’s self. Read the rest of this entry »

We thoroughly loved reading about your family and your dogs. Having adopted 8 dogs over our 35-year marriage and currently parenting 4 dogs, 2 of whom were rescued, we thank you for teaching us how to really love our dogs.

Sheila from TX

Dooley was a true junkyard dog. I was with a friend looking for a junk car that she could drive and her kid brings me the saddest looking puppy I had seen in a long while.

Diagnosed with genetic mange, abcesses to the head where he had been bitten and a kidney infection so bad he was urinating blood. He was about 6 weeks old.

On May 4 of this year he had a rare vascular event that paralyzed his right side. He is 9 years old now. He fought back, again, and came back. He is my hero.

Deanne from FL

Hi Mark. I haven’t had a chance to read your book yet but enjoy listening to you talk about it on your Podcasts. I want to tell you about our Bear. He was part Black Lab and part Newfoundland. My wife got Bear at a shelter when she was 14. As she walked into the kennel all of the dogs were jumping and crying to get out but their was one dog sitting there silent and that was Bear. My wife said ‘that’s the one’. Bear lived a long life for a dog his size. 15 years.

I came home from work one day and my wife told me Bear didn’t come downstairs today. We knew he was slowing down in his old age but this concerned us. I carried him down so he could be with the family and while we were eating he got sick. My wife and I looked at each other not wanting to alarm the kids and knew we had to take him to be seen immediately. I carried Bear out to my wife’s car and she brought him to an emergency vet up in Manchester, NH. They took X-Ray’s and they knew right away that it wasn’t good. Bear was riddled with tumors. This poor dog must have been in so much pain and yet we never heard a whimper out of him. Bear couldn’t stand or walk but when I entered the room he was at the vets he wagged his tail just as he did everyday. My wife and I sat with him as the doctor did what had to be done. It was my wife’s first experience with death and the first time I had to make a decision like that.

We miss Bear everyday and dig out pictures of him often as well as having a framed picture of him in the living room with the inscription “If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane, I’d climb up to heaven and bring you back again. ” We now have a Golden from a pet store and a Plott Hound from a shelter. Thank you Mark for this page!!!!!

Tim from NH

Our first Dachshund Fritz 6.5 yrs had back problems which although treated well with prednisone, had bad side effects, leading to his being put down (found out later that a 2nd drug was needed to preclude coliis). So a month later got a rescue dog Kirby, part Dachshund, part terrier, to resolve the hole in our lives. He’s very good at consuming our attention, a very popular dog in the neighborhood, our close companion….

Peter from MN