My wife Susan has always wanted to have a dog. She wanted a small lap dog that would be easy for her to travel with alone while I was away working. A companion for her that she could easily handle. She thought that this would have to be a small dog since she has physical challenges.

We tried to adopt a male terrier from an adoption fair sponsored by the Detroit Zoo in the summer of 2008 but that did not work out for us. Sadly we had to return Dash back to the No-Kill shelter in Hillsdale County that had brought him there. The shelter actually had no room for him so the director met us there and fostered him at her home. she was a very nice lady. We had spent lots of money on food, and toys and we gave it all to her for Dash.

This past summer however, was a different story. My wife became unable to work and we filed for Social Security Disability for her online in July. A week later I was let go from my job as a truck driver from Ryder Integrated Logistics.

With no income coming in and a six week backlog in unemployment benefit determinations, things were getting pretty tight. That is when it happened.

When we were pulling in the driveway from grocery shopping with our emergency food assistance card. My wife spotted a brindle colored puppy in the neighbor’s front yard. She was drawn to it. She had to go and talk to the neighbor to see if it was okay to play with the dog.

To her amazement, they asked her if she wanted the dog! My wife asked why they did not want the dog anymore since they had it for a few days already. They explained that the dog that they already had before this one was given to them was all that they could handle and they were just going to let this one wander the streets. They were actually trying to shoo it away when she came over to talk with them about the dog. Susan was not having any of that. She was not about to stand by and watch as another loving dog was turned out to fend for itself on the streets. So she said “of course I will take the dog”.

Those renters moved out that very day and sadly took their original dog, a beautiful female pit bull with them. But my wife took the brindle puppy into our fenced in yard and played with her as I brought the groceries in from the car and put them away.

I came outside when I was done putting the food away and my beautiful wife was sitting on a lawn chair stroking the dog’s head. su looked up at me and asked if we could keep her. I hesitated for a moment thinking of having another mouth to feed on an already uncertain future. I told her that thought, and said that although the dog was indeed a very nice dog, we just could not afford to take one on now.

She pleaded with me, batting those beautiful brown eyes at me coyly. The dog came over to me and stood there looking sadly at me. I eyed her over as she stood there. She was about 30 pounds and was balding in spots. I surmised that she had mange. i pointed that condition out to Su. She continued to plead for keeping the dog. I reached down to pat the dog’s head and she looked up at me and her eyes lit up and she licked my hand as if it were a giant lollipop

I was smitten with her then and there, but the pragmatist in me was still reserved. I told Su that we could keep her only long enough to locate a no kill shelter that would take her. The rest of that afternoon I was online locating no kill shelters. I contacted every one of them in Michigan and even a few of them in northern Ohio and northern Indiana. None of them were taking any more dogs or cats. They were all full due to the horrid economy in this region.

And so I was actually kind of relieved that we were stuck with this particular dog. Su named her Lyndi Lou. And we went back online to the Friends of Animals website and purchased a spay coupon from them and set about to find a local animal hospital that participates in their program. We found a great on in Berkley Michigan about 15 miles from our house.

We took Lyndi there right away and the vet was great. He saw how distressed Lyndi was with the mange and did a skin scraping. He said that she had a bad case of generalized demodectic mange and he recommended a series of medicated baths and dips and a course of antibiotics.

Over the course of the next month we took her once a week to the Berkley Animal Clinic in the morning at nine and dropped her off. She would be done with her treatment by about three in the afternoon. She has had two negative skin scrapings in a row as of two weeks ago. So they scheduled her for the spay on the seventeenth of December, 2010.

So in conclusion, although this year has had some significant challenges for my wife and I, we are ending this year on a high note having given ourselves a wonderful gift, and Lyndi a new lease on life.

Lyndi is just an absolute joy. She has never once been anything but happy with us and our two aging cats even when she had such severe itching because of mange.

Lyndi is a terrier mix. The vet determined that she was only about 7 months old. We think that she has a little bit of American Stafford (Pit) and a little bit of Greyhound in her. She loves to run around in our fenced in back yard. And she is very fast. Her coloring is as beautiful as her disposition is. She is now very healthy and happy to own my wife and I. We wouldn’t have it any other way!

— David from Pontiac, MI

Our misbehaving, darling, sweet Maggie – a pure bred poodle who, if she ended up weighing more than 7 lbs., her breeder said we could take her back for a full refund – HA! – she soon weighed 11 lbs. and was the sweetest, spunkiest lil pup in the world. She was so averse to water, she would tip-toe, barely touching her feet to the ground if it was the slightest bit wet, even when running to get a treat or a love. Speaking of love, Holly Magnolia (Maggie’s full name)was such a love – as a toy poodle, she was easily excitable and loved to run around, but if you could get her to roll on her back, and patiently, gently, rub and tickle her belly, she would melt into your arms.
However, if you had food in your hand, she’d snatch it out and snarl and bare her teeth like a pit-bull.
the thing is, my darling Maggie, loved with all of her heart, and would wait every night for me to massage her every night before bed, I am allergic to dogs, less so with poodles, but still get asthma and rashes if i pet them…I suffered from my allergies constantly by being with Maggie, but I wouldn’t trade a moment I spent with my lovable, darling, “puppy” who was the first furry creature i could hold in my arms (my allergies are severe and I get asthma and/or very sick if I am around dogs and cats…My precious Maggie was the only dog I have ever been able to love and hold and she gave me such pure love…when I got pregnant, I couldn’t hold her without getting very sick with asthma, but Maggie understood, she took what love she could get it, and always looked me in the eyes with her true- look of love. When my baby was born, she would bark incessantly if the baby cried and look up at me with such consternation, “why can’t you stop this, Mama?!
I will love and cherish my special moments with my sweet Maggie and will find a way for my daughter(who is also, extremely allergic) to have the amazing, special relationship unique to man and dog.

— Lisa from Santa Ana, CA

I have listened to you for years, and always loved your stories about your dogs, and your devotion to them. I have been meaning to order “Sprite”, but never seemed to get around to it. This night before last I lost my best friend. A 75 pound Male Doberman named Pharaoh.
He was 9, but had his stomach turn over which is apparently common in large chested dogs. Surgery was an option, for 5-8 thousand dollars, which i considered even though I knew it would take me years to pay off. Then they discovered additional issues.
I have told my kids that if I get sick, no heroics. I’m 60, have had a great life, and when its time let it happen. Preserve my dignity. Then I realized that with regard to my friend, I was only thinking about myself, and how life would be without him. I had to let him go. He died in my arms while I stroked his head, and told him what a good boy he was. Its been two days and I still break down and cry when I least expect it. Damn I loved that dog.

— Larry from Bethel Island, CA

My heart is broken and my soul aches. My little Daisy was struck by a car and killed Nov. 19th after she escaped out the back door of my home and charged into the road after a dog being walked. She died in my arms. I don’t have kids…so my dogs are the closest substitute that my wife and I have. And I can’t claim a monopoly on grief…my wife is devastated and inconsolable. But I just don’t have words to describe how much I hurt.

My office is in my home, so my four dogs are my constant companions. And Daisy and I had a special relationship…she always had me within eyeshot, and if I sat down on a couch or a chair she had to be in a position to lay a loving paw on me so that there was a physical connection between us. I worshiped the ground she walked on, and from her actions, I knew it was reciprocal.

God has His reasons why these things happen. I will never presume to second guess God. But in my despair, I have to ask “Why?”

— Tony from Clinton, MA

On the evening of December 6, 2010, my sweet dog Amber, my pit bull and best friend for 10 years, went to sleep for the last time. She was diagnosed last January with mast cell tumors (a form of cancer) around her tail. Because of the location, the tumors were inoperable. The vet at that time gave her five or six months to live. But we tried all kinds of treatments, some experimental, some found on the internet, to try to buy her more time, and apparently we were somewhat successful. But her quality of life began to suffer in the last several weeks especially, and it got to where she could not support herself on her rear legs and had trouble eliminating. We rigged a sling for her and would walk her out in the yard to ‘do her business’ but over time, even that wasn’t working. On Sunday, we made the incredibly difficult and painful decision to let her go, since it was obvious that she was not a happy dog any longer and we were really just being selfish, trying to postpone the inevitable for our sakes.

Everyone who met Amber, or Amber Lynn Dawg as I called her sometimes, loved her. She was the sweetest and most loving dog I have ever known. I rescued Amber when I lived in Georgia after she had somehow managed to free herself from people who had abused her and used her to breed pit bull puppies for fighting. When I found her, she had every kind of worm imaginable including Stage IV heart worms and was near death; in fact, the first vet we took her to in Atlanta said she would die within a month and so there was no need to try to save her. But something inside me would not let me accept that as her final sentence and so I took her to another vet where I lived, who was willing to try a radical treatment for the heart worms in order to save her. The treatment took three long months during which time she was confined to a crate only big enough for her to fit into, and she had to be carried outside to eliminate and then placed right back in her crate. But her fighting spirit saw her through and she came out of it healthy and worm free.

Over the ten or so years that followed, she was my constant companion and a source of great comfort to me when things were difficult. She helped me through a rough divorce and moving back to Texas, changing jobs and all number of things. Her bright disposition and determination never faltered, even when we had to have surgery on both her back legs because of arthritis – she soldiered through it all. She was a neighborhood favorite here at the house and many days she would happily sit in “Amber’s Corner” (a special place at the corner of the backyard fence where she could watch the the world go by) and the neighbors would always stop on their walks to visit with her and often bring her treats. People asked after her welfare more than they asked about mine! She never met a person she didn’t like and was totally worthless as a watchdog, but a sweeter animal you’d never meet. She loved being a ‘sun dog’, laying in the back yard, chewing on her rawhide bones and occasionally grasping one in her teeth and prancing around the yard with her funny galloping run like she was holding a massive cigar.

After all we had been through together, and after all the struggle for almost a year to beat her cancer, it was a very hard decision for us – possibly one of the most difficult of my life – to let her go. But it was obvious she would never improve and her recent days had become little more than trying to sleep comfortably and then putting up with us dragging her around the yard. It was no way for such a noble, loving companion to live out her remaining time. We spent the day with her, loving her, giving her treats and hopefully making her feel loved. During the afternoon as I sat with her on the living room floor, she looked up at me with those soulful brown eyes as if to say, “It’s OK, Daddy. I’m ready.” When the final moment came at the vet’s office, she passed peacefully in my arms and now she is suffering no more. Now she is gone from my life and our home but will never be forgotten. I already miss her terribly and in the days and weeks to come I know that pain will grow before it fades.

I don’t know if there is a Heaven for dogs but if there is, she is there now, free from disease, happily running, chewing her rawhide bones and greeting anyone who comes near with her big toothy grin and madly wagging tail.

So — think a kind thought for her and wish her peace, please. She was the finest, the best dog I have ever known. She was my Amber, the Wonder Dog.

— Kyle from Ovilla, TX

Joe Joe is my black Labrador retriever and I call him “my heart”. He’s 12 years old now, but for the last 9, he has been through multiple injuries, surgeries, illnesses and treatments, and come to find out, all for my benefit. He led me to a new career as a canine rehab therapist at the age of 47, and through his struggles, he has taught me lessons both personal and professional. I believe, Joe Joe, was my special gift from God, my own personal guardian angel. His job… to lead me to my passion in life.
Because of Joe Joe I have been blessed in being able to work with multiple dogs, each with their own message of bravery, trust, persistence, forgiveness, and love.

But it all started with Joe Joe, and I believe he is the architect of God’s plan for me.

— Jean from Dayton, OH