My mother-in-law’s dog was killed in her driveway by our neighbor tonight. Mindy was a dark brown collie. She would have been 4 in January.

Mindy came to our little corner of the world in March of 2005. I was traveling at the time and called home to see how things were. “We have a new resident in Skeeterville.” I was told by my husband. Oh good, Grammy, had lost her beautiful sable collie Belle in a tragic accident with a delivery truck the previous January. She’d been looking for another dog.

I called the next night again and heard “We have a new resident in Skeeterville.”
“Yeah you told me about the dog last night.”
“Now there are two.”
OY! It seems the little girl puppy had a brother that was blind in one eye and my mother-in-law lay away all night worrying that no one would adopt him, so, she did.

We took to calling them Muck & Mire and Grammy didn’t like that, so she quickly chose Mork & Mindy. When they would bound up the trail between our houses to greet me, I’d call them Mindy Moo and Morky too.

No doubt about it, Mindy was Grammy’s dog and Grammy spoiled her rotten. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Mork, but she and Mindy had something special. About a year and a half ago, Mindy developed seizures. Then she started having multiple seizures at once. It wasn’t pretty. Grammy spent hours researching seizures on the Internet. She threw out all the lawn chemicals, and changed their diet from commercial dog food to all natural raw food. Eventually, she started Mindy on a regimen of Phenobarbital. Once the dosage and timing was worked out, it seemed to help, but it affected Mindy’s disposition. The Pheno, made her dazed, she moved more slowly through the world, but no less loving.

We aren’t overzealous dog lovers, but we try and do our best by them. Our dog Daisy (also a collie) has a strong dislike for anything with an engine and she taught the puppies well. Mindy became too laid back to care, but Mork would always put up a fuss with or without Daisy’s help.

We have an electric fence that runs between the two houses so they can roam freely yet still be safe. It is designed to keep them out of harms way by keeping them away from MOST cars and delivery trucks. Regular visitors know to back up slowly. The neighbor in question has a deeded right of through our land to the back part of his land. He knows we have dogs and he knows we have kids. He’s a hunter and physically disabled, so he often drives his truck out to his deer stand.

We’re still not clear what happened tonight, the neighbor was very upset. He says he was going slow and expecting the barrage of fur, but some how he caught her, the most docile of the bunch, with his rear tire. He is not malicious, either way this was an accident, but regardless, the result is the same.

Grammy has perspective “It was a dog, not one of the kids.”, but still she was a good dog.

Rest In Peace Mindy Moo. We’ll miss you.