DH spoke about having a dog named Molly from the time we first met. Molly joined us around his birthday during the first year we were married. She was an "accident" puppy, one of the second(!) litter from an Airedale mother and the black Labrador male next door. At first she looked very much like a Lab, except for the loop in her tail. The Airedale looks crept in more as she grew. Her temperament definitely tended more towards her Airedale side!DH and I were both working full-time (plus) when Molly became part of our family. She accompanied me to work as a pup, spending most of the day in her crate, but going out for regular breaks and a long walk/playtime over lunch.
We took "Puppy Manners" classes in the evenings her first year. There were five Bernese Mountain Dog littermates in our first series of classes. Those pups were giant teddybears, doing anything their owners asked. Molly, on the other hand, was a wild child. On the last day of class we played "pass the puppy." Each human took a turn running every puppy through their paces. The only other human who could get Molly to do anything had an Australian Shepherd. She climbed all over the Berner owners! We didn't feel quite so incompetent after that. (Looking back, this would have been a lesson to keep in mind when we became parents. It's not that those other people are better at parenting, but that they are working with a naturally more compliant temperament...)
We took Molly car-camping a few times her first spring, and then on a backpacking trip when she was six months old. She had a blast! Every patch of snow we passed was an excuse to roll and scrabble around. "Molly-the-snow-dog" was one of her many monikers.
Molly was a bundle of energy. When we still lived in WA we took her to the Marymoor Dog Area at least once a week. (There was even an espresso- and dog-treat-mobile in the parking lot!) She ran and ran and ran, keeping up with the whippets and greyhounds. We came to call the dog park "Mollymoor."
Molly was a star with the kids. High-energy, but gentle. Fun-loving. Patient. Her jaw was so soft that she couldn't keep a ball in her mouth while she ran. The nearest she ever came to biting was putting her open mouth on my forearm when I was pulling a thorn from her foot. (You can't blame her; I'm sure it hurt!)
Our poor puppy-friend succumbed to pelvic cancer. She went downhill very quickly. We were totally unprepared, especially so soon after Marilyn's death. DD2 told us that she couldn't play in the back yard anymore without Molly. Camping without her is weird. We expect to hear the jingle of her tags every time we open the back door. Three weeks later, her ghosts are still everywhere.
We will get another dog, but not quite yet. Kennedy has been given a stern talking-to about giving us some time before he goes (and about just not waking up one morning, rather than having some great health crisis that forces us to make the hard decision!).
