Many of you who know me and have gone rockhunting with me here locally, or on my travels out of state, know that my buddy girl Missy accompanied me for the past several years…she basically traveled with me everywhere except to work. She was the sweetest dog I have ever had, very loving and very protective as well,  a Border Collie for the most part with a little bit of Black Lab mixed in…..

…and even those who I have not personally met, but who have followed this blog site, know of her from my stories with photos over the years. She was faithful and generally stayed by my side or close by when I was rockhunting at quarries and mines…..

…I acquired her several years ago from the Humane Society`s local office and she and I became inseparable for the next sixteen years, she traveled with me on my vacation trips in the fall to Colorado and Arkansas, fire calls when I went to photograph the scenes for the local paper, shopping, sightseeing, and pretty much all of my rockhunting trips in and out of state as well.

She even went to a few fires with me, riding with me in a fire truck or two even. I was out delivering flowers for Watson`s Florists one day, in my personal truck, when my pager went off for a barn fire in the Japan area, north of town. We were close to Station 3 so I drove over there, got the pumper out, loaded her up into the cab, and away we went responding to the barn fire. We were first on the scene, finding the barn well involved in fire…I had the ac on full blast for her in the fire truck cab and she was fine, we were fighting fire when the rest of the fire department arrived to assist us and no flowers were harmed as I was done delivering when the call came in. 

Shortly after coming to live with me, she alerted me to smoke filling my home one night, before the smoke detector even sounded that was twenty feet closer to the smoke source…which turned out to be my old fridge compressor catching fire under the fridge and igniting the linoleum floor. I called the fire house and the guys came down to check it and found the source to be the fridge compressor. For a dog that didn`t bark much, she sure had a knack for it at the right times and had no problem alerting when someone was approaching the house or door to a motel room as well. She even chased some guys down the street after they tried to break into my Ford Explorer several years ago, parked under my carport…I never heard them but she sure did…needless to say, they never came back.

Missy began experiencing some problems with her mobility a few weeks ago and I took her to my local Vet to have her checked, figuring I would need to get her a cortizone shot for arthritis….however after checking her out and taking an xray as well, the news was much more grim than I ever expected. Dr Koch confirmed his suspicions with the xray and told me that she had a large tumor growth attached to her spleen…I felt like someone had just punched me in the stomach and I just about broke down right then…luckily, he knew exactly how I felt…he has 2 Border Collies as well…and he gave her a shot and suggested that I take her home for doggy hospice care.

I was relieved yet dreaded what was to come eventually….I watched her slide downhill the next two weeks…she took one more trip with me to pick up a huge crystal that I purchased from a collector nearby, but she eventually stopped eating even though my Mom and I were trying everything…the girls at Du Kum Inn were cooking her hamburger patties for us and she ate them for about the first week, we even tried canned dogfood cause it was softer for her, but she eventually just completely stopped eating everything and just continued to drink water all the time. Her mobility got worse, she was sliding on my wood floors all the time, so I put more rugs down to help her get around better and that helped her out alot.

After a couple of weeks tho, her breathing became more labored, to the point I worried that she would suffer a heart attack, and she got to the point that she could no longer get around much at all, I was carrying her up and down the few stairs…and I decided it was time to put her down…something that everyone can tell you that I did not want to do, but I could not bear to watch her get worse and struggle to breathe, so earlier this week on Tuesday, I took her to my Vet and had him put her down…it was a matter of time at any rate, her age was against her for surgery to remove it, and she had lived four years past the average lifespan of Border Collies, so I felt blessed to have had her for that long, even though I truly miss her to this day. My house is empty without her and mornings are the hardest time cause she was always waiting for me at the door when I came home from work, always as glad to see me as I was to see her. One of my dispatcher friends sent me a poem that relates to our pets as angels on loan to us….

…and I truly look forward to the day I see her once again as spelled out in the Rainbow Bridge poem that my friend Peggy had sent me as well…

…I truly appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers for Missy and I over the past few weeks and hope to find yet another sweet and loving companion pet again soon.