Alaska had 15 great years of good health and good friends surrounded by humans who loved him. He never hurt a living soul...as long as you don't count that gray cat when we lived on the West End. Oh yeah, there was that baby rabbit when he lived by Lake Norman. Well, he never hurt any *people*. He was mellow, forgiving, funny, loyal as all get-out and just plain cool. And he was simply, and yet profoundly, a member of our family.