Our beloved Mollie crossed the Rainbow Bridge last Wednesday evening, resting peacefully in the shade of the shop, a favorite spot of hers for many years during hot weather. At 13 she had been active up until the last week of her life, a special blessing for farm dogs, who don’t often live to such a ripe old age.

We adopted her in May of 2009 from the Kearney Animal Clinic. They estimated her age to be five months when we brought her home, but rather than pick a birthday in January, we chose to celebrate her “Gotcha Day” when it rolled around every year.

A black Labrador-Border Collie cross, she was mostly black with white socks. It was obvious the retriever was strong in her as from an early age one of her favorite pastimes was to play fetch. One day when her favorite stick disappeared, on a whim Don tossed her an old irrigation gasket to chase. She immediately fell in love with that circular piece of rubber and ever after that we usually had two gaskets in play because she would invariably drop one while on a mission to chase a rabbit and forget where it was. Juliana was already in college and Cicely was just finishing her freshman year in high school when Mollie came into our lives, but even at their age, that little bundle wormed her way into their hearts. Both girls like to run, and Mollie became their best ever running companion.

She continued to love to run until one day about four years ago, we missed tying her up while stringing irrigation pipe and the poor thing ran so far on gravel, she wore the pads off her feet. For two weeks she had to wear special orange boots and the cone of shame while her paws healed. After that we’d take her on walks but would tie her up to her doghouse if anyone was going on a run.

As a puppy she was fond of taking all her “toys” and special “treasures” and piling them in an area of our south lawn. When she grew a little bit older, she developed a fondness for stealing people’s gloves. When one would disappear from the shop bench, back steps or wherever, we simply needed to check her south lawn “stash” and we were usually able to reunite missing gloves.

Then there was the day the mechanic stopped to work on a tractor sitting in the yard. For some reason while grabbing his tools, he put a whole box of gloves on the tailgate of his repair truck. That was too much for Mollie. She proceeded to take pair after pair from the box and by the time the mechanic realized what was happening, she had gloves strung in a trail from the pickup to her treasure spot on the south lawn. She also loved to go visit our former neighbors to the west. One snowy day we arrived home to discover a box in her stash. A check of the slightly chewed up mailing label revealed that the box belonged to the neighbor, who was an electrician by trade. Sure enough, he had been expecting a delivery and somehow Mollie had dragged the box the entire quarter mile from Mike’s place.

Mollie had been slowing down this spring and this summer’s constant heat took its toll. We noticed she had been panting a lot in the last month but attributed it to the heat. Then last Friday, after returning from a trip to the Sandhills she came staggering up to Cicely. She had overheated and was severely dehydrated. Cicely immediately hosed her down with cool water and she drank nearly half a bucket of water.

By the next morning it was determined she needed a vet’s attention, and we took her in for an IV. Because Cicely and Dan’s wedding reception was that night the vet kept her for observation for the weekend.

We brought her home Monday, but by then the vet knew she had a tumor in her stomach, and we were advised to keep her comfortable and say our good-byes. Juliana and Dorne came about 4 p.m. Wednesday and Julie took one last photo with her fur friend. One of her favorite delivery drivers had stopped earlier in the afternoon and also said good-bye. When our agronomist stopped about 5:30 to deliver the week’s crop reports, she was gone.

Living on the farm we have the luxury of an area in our north shelterbelt that has become the pet cemetery. Mollie rests there now with one of her gaskets and an orange plastic bone she was crazy about. She left us with many wonderful memories of rolling in the snow, chasing rabbits and squirrels and spreading unconditional love to her family and many, many friends.