I knew Gerry West for about 25 years, from when I first started to take my dog to Ambleside. He was there with his current dogs twice a day everyday, for decades. He was a social person and all he needed to start a conversation was his dog and your dog touching noses. And then he was off on every subject under the sky, his talk peppered with a fund of literary quotes from his sharp memory.

What Gerry was most proud of doing in his life, and he said so daily to anyone and everyone, was that he had "liberated" a few dogs. He would preface his story to the group on "his" bench with, "I don't care who knows it, the best thing I ever did was to liberate that dog. I never call it stealing, I liberated it! What was being done to that dog was shameful and I did something for it and I don't care who knows."

He was referring to any of several dogs he "liberated" over the years, beginning 20 years ago and ending with his last "liberation", last year.

Gerry was "Dad" to several AAS dogs over the years: Gringo, chained in the middle of winter at 13 weeks old; Sadie, kept in a small pen for seven years; Stella, a chained drug house dog; and Gizmo, chained to a dog house inside the Artic Circle, covered with flies in the summer, covered with ice in the winter. As soon as we knew that Gerry was ill, we took in Stella and Gizmo. Catherine Chartier took Gringo and Gerry's last bulldog, Monty, who he loved with the special warmth that he had for Bulldogs, went to a relative. Gerry said to us over and over in the last two years, "If anything happens to me, don't let my dogs go to the SPCA, I'd rather they were dead." We kept our promise to Gerry that we would never let that happen. Gizmo is with the man who "liberated" him and is staying there this time and Stella is asleep at my feet as I write this.