Epilogue to this story. We spread Marley's ashes in the Cape Fear River over Christmas. One of my daughters went to a counseling session and identified "Marley's death" as the key thing that was bothering her, and my wife and I actually had the conversation "should we see someone?" about Marley's passing. I could never have imagined the death of a pet as being so emotionally draining. Anyone who knows our family knows we are pretty much "dog people". I personally don't think I can separate my personality from what I have learned from my dogs over the years. If I were a clinical psychologist, I'd want to examine that, but I have another profession. Well, we started "looking at dogs" again, but not "looking for a dog" with maybe getting one "down the road". So happens a cousin of my wife, her dog had puppies, Lab-Golden mix. We claimed one, to get once he was old enough. Well, we re-visited after 6 weeks, and all his litter mates were scooped up. So, after some hemming and hawing over early puppy separation, we picked up our new dog "Beaufort". So, it begins all over again. We got him checked out at the vet, have babied the crap out of him, and annoyed family and friends alike with an excess of cute puppy pictures and cute puppy videos on Facebook. My daughters, though one adult and one adolescent, are cooing over him like 5-year-olds again. Yes, we are a big dog family again. Now, I am going to annoy all my virtual trawler friends with cute puppy pics for a while. He's got a long way until he's water-ready, but summer is still a ways off. So enjoy and be annoyed, introducing Beaufort...