We received Mollie as a puppy. I noticed immediately that she was very smart and had a sense of danger that other dogs didn't have. For instance, when you open the front door, some dogs will make a dash for the street, running wild and not knowing that they might be in danger of getting hit by a car. But not Mollie. She would sit and look when the door was opened, but she would only go out if she knew it was safe. She loved going for walks on her leash and she would wiggle her little head through her collar whenever somebody held it out for her. Mollie was with us in two apartments, and finally in the first house that we ever bought in 2000. She loved chasing squirrels and birds in the back yard. Soon after we moved to our house she developed Diabetes and Cushing's Disease. Then the cataracts came. She never complained about her decreasing ability to get around and took her insulin shots and other medication without running away. It was as if she knew these things were there to help her, even though it wasn't fun to get poked and have to swallow capsules every day. Mollie loved to ride in the car and stick her head out the window. She would bark at different sounds and scents. We took her with us on a road trip to Canada in the summer of 1993. It was a 1,200 mile drive, but she loved it. Even though she couldn't see clearly, she was able to see shapes and light and was able to get around the back yard and even walk slowly from room to room in the house. I work the night shift and when I would leave for work at night, there was nobody to see me off except Mollie. She was always there at the door to say goodbye. Sometimes she would crunch her dog food and go out before I left, but she always went to the door with me to say goodbye. It must have been difficult for her to make her way back to the bedroom after I left, but this is what she did. And she was there to greet me when I came home in the morning too. In the last few months, sometimes she wasn't there to say hello when I came home in the morning; instead she was still in the bedroom. I would poke around the kitchen for a while and after a few minutes she would poke her fuzzy head around the doorway to say hello. With all of her medical issues, we knew that there would be a time when she would either pass away or we would have to help her make the transition. The really difficult part of making that decision is that you have to rely on them to tell you when it's time, and I was concerned that I wouldn't know. It's not like you can speak to them and say something like, "You've been a faithful friend as well as an important part of the family. If this is all too much for you to take, please tell me and I'll help you make the transition over the Rainbow Bridge." As far as euthanasia was concerned, I was always worried that I would make the decision too soon or too late. Even though she had diabetes, cataracts and Cushings for years, her quality of life was good and she enjoyed riding in the car, chasing birds and just doing what he always did, just more slowly. Her deterioration came quickly over a couple of days. She didn't eat or drink and she vomited for most of a day, then she had a major seizure. We took her to the emergency clinic where they kept her overnight and stabilized her. She didn't have any more seizures that night, so we took her to the vet in the morning and then took her home. I had some baby food that I kept for just this type of emergency but she couldn't keep even a drop of it down. Then she had a couple of small seizures and finally a large one. We rushed her back to the emergency clinic. The told us that given her condition, they weren't sure she could make it through the night. We didn't want her to die alone, in a cage, with people she didn't know so we made the difficult decision at that time to help her go so that she would leave with us there, holding her. The vet said that when the medication that would stop her heart was injected she might urinate or defecate reflexively, but we didn't care. It's only clothes and this was Mollie. But within 15 seconds after the injection, she stopped breathing and she put her little head in my hand and it was over. She was a good girl, even at the end.

Please visit Mollie's memorial at http://remembermollie.com