Mikki was my first doggie buddy. I saw an ad in the paper for free half Labrador, half Golden Retriever puppies. I drove to Chandler and there was just one puppy left. A little girl. I'd for some reason already decided to name the puppy I was going to get, Mikki. I gave her that name even though she was a girl. It worked for her. I drove home in my 1972 Datsun 1600 truck with little Mikki on my lap. She was so calm, she slept all the way to her new home in Apache Junction. Mikki was a good puppy and learned quickly. I started taking her on hikes and she became an excellent trail dog. She'd stay behind me when I told her to. In later years she would give two of our other dogs confidence hiking in a difficult place in West Canyon. Mikki and me did a lot of exploring together, went on a lot of hikes, saw a lot of things. Mikki's best dog buddy was my sister's Doberman, Apollo. When Apollo died suddenly in his sleep in 1993 Mikki was extremely distressed. We got another dog, an adult collie, Heather, but Mikki never got very close to Heather. She was closer to my sister's next dog, Banjo, but was never as close to any other dog as she was with Apollo. Mikki got sick in 1997 when she was 12 years old and I had to have her put to sleep. I stayed by her side as the veterinarian injected her with a needle. I held her head in my hands and recited a poem to her. She slowly lay down on her side and was gone. It hurt so much to lose Mikki. It still does. Several months after she died I saw Mikki in a dream. I'd been wanting so much to see her in a dream. In the dream she looked healthy and her fur was shiny. She wasn't thin and boney like the last time I saw her. In the dream I picked her up and told her how much I missed her.