petr, you have my deepest sympathies. Sam sounded like one of the best of the best and they are painfully hard to let go of when the time comes and for long after.

Thanks for the memory flashback too. Dogs and heights still give me shivers. One of my wee white dogs, a long time ago, slipped from a cliff into a waterfall on the Koksilah River.

To this day, the memory of a pair of frantic black eyes, almost breaking the surface and then disappearing again and again beneath the turmoil of white water at the base of the falls, is forever burned in my mind and still catches my breath.

I was lower down on the rocks when it happened and without thinking, took an icy plunge and somehow managed to retrieve him safely. It probably didn't take but a few moments, but time crawls in your mind in such instances and the memory, indelible......a goofy little dog, that still after all these years, has a special place in my heart.