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. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Mark,
My husband Fred listens to you all the time; I am more of a moderate, Sorry!

We are dog lovers. As a matter of fact, we have three shelter dogs, Herbie, Bailey and Stella. We adopted Herbie from the local SPCA after we had to put our beloved Smokey to sleep (Smokey found us in December, 1984 – she was sitting on Fred’s welcome mat outside his apartment in Paterson, NJ). We adopted Bailey from the local Humane Society after we had to put our much loved Taffy to sleep (Taffy also found us – in the parking lot of Fred’s apartment complex in February, 1987, a few weeks before our wedding). In 2005 we adopted Stella after seeing her picture in a pet boutique in Long Branch requesting a new home because her current owner could not keep her. It turned out that we knew Stella’s human dad’s sister. Now we are all one happy, loud, rambunctious family, which also includes our 16 year old daughter, Amanda.

I bought your book; actually I felt compelled to buy the book. I tried to call your show on Thursday, November 8th (“Joanne from New Jersey”). I was disconnected three times and was finally to be put through except that the show ended. I was terribly disappointed. I wanted to share some advice with you and siblings your listeners concerning animal “siblings” when one of them needs to be put to sleep. When the unfortunate time comes it is important for the surviving animal siblings to be present and have an opportunity to say good bye by being close to and sniffing their dearly departed friend. We learned this the hard way. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Mark, Jusr finished reading your book. It sounded so familiar. Right now we have 20 dogs, all strays. About 12 years ago we found a pure white pit bull He was an angel for sure. The Vet said we shouldn’t bring him home to be with the others so I took him to the Humane Society. As we passed our road he turned to me and a big tear ran down his face. We both cried all the way there. We brought him home a few weeks later. October of this year he started having kidney failure and we got him dialysias and his kidneys started working. However he contracted pneumonia and had to be euthanized.Even though we have 20 more we miss him terribly.

Erlene from CA