I wanted to thank you for sending all the info. You did. We do want to get involved with Newf Rescue. So, I guess we need to apply for membership, could you send me info on that?

I don't know if you ever use things people send to you for your newsletter, but if you do, feel free to use what I'm about to write. I'm not sure anyone else, but Charlie and I would care to read it, but I think you'll understand why I'm writing it.

We're picking up Ozzie's ashes today. It's hard to believe that he's gone. Charlie can still remember when his daughter brought him home. He was a black fur-ball, the runt of the litter, and full of bad habits--some he still had when he passed. He still remembers when he housebroke him, and when Ozzie lost his mate. He can tell you all about how, the black fur-ball grew into a rather large fur-ball and how it came to be that he went everywhere with us.

Ozzie was special. He wasn't just a dog. He was a family member. With a personality all his own, and we treated him as we did the kids. Ozzie loved us without question without judgment, he never complained or scolded us; he was our friend, and our protector.

I could go on for hours, telling you about his crazy antics from the way he'd chase chipmunks and sit looking at their holes to the way he�d beg chocolate chip cookies from us--looking forlornly at us with those big brown eyes (what a guilt trip). I could tell you about the time we tried to harness him, and the grandkids wound up in the snow-bank. And about how he loved to sit in the front seat and the way people would point and .say "Look at that!� the way their faces would light up with a smile, and we would know that they would talk about the rest of the day.

I could tell you how the whisker's under his chin had turned gray and how they matched Charlie's, and how he always knew when we needed his loving--how he would search the house when I wasn't home, going so far as to tear the covers from the bed, to see if I was sleeping Late. Or how attached he was to my five-year-old. How he wouldn't seem to like him much during the day--at night he would sleep by his bed, and God help the soul who didn't treat the boy right!

But he's gone, now, and we'll never have another quite like him. We have acquired a new Newf, whom we've renamed Little Bear. She has some of his antics, and many of her own. She sheds and slobbers and uses me for a teething ring, she has plenty of bad habits, which will pass in time, along with many good habits. She is already displaying the protectiveness of her home and family, along with a playfulness that I didn't think a dog that big was capable of. She is as smart as Ozzie was with a curiosity that only a two-year-old child can match.

She is a Godsend after we lost our Ozzie. Her liveliness has helped us deal with our loss and her loving and need to be loved is what we needed. I think she knows how much we need her, and how much we love her already. And I think Ozzie would have liked her too.

I would like to thank all the people who gave me the opportunity to talk with them, to share a bit of my hurt, and who took the time to care. They didn't treat me like a nut, as many people would. The humane societies, and the Newf Club members, along with vets and the private parties they referred me to. God knows I was a basket case when I talked to them, trying to locate another Newf, while trying not to think of how lonely our home would be without Ozzie.

I learned a lot about the Newf breed, and found out that it takes special people to own and love such a special animal. We would like to train Little Bear for land and water rescue, and to take to the harness � she is young enough and show-offy enough that she just might do well at it.