Dakota - the Nebraska Years and then a Reunion with us

When we lived in Fargo, Dakota went to Belvidere to live with Travis' parents on the farm.  She became a real outside farm dog but was so sweet that even Travis' dad couldn't resist her.  He let her ride around in the tractor with him sometimes.  I don't think that he had ever done that with any other dogs.  She was a good dog but I don't think she was much of a herder really.  She had a knack for getting in the middle of everything instead of helping out.

While on the farm she had a litter of pups.  I need to scan some pictures of them and get them in here.  She had seven puppies and one died shortly after birth.  She was a good mamma.  All of the puppies went to live with farmers in the area and they seemed to love them.

Travis and I looked forward to trips to Nebraska to see our little girl.

In 2000 Travis got a promotion and we moved.  We also bought our first house, complete with a huge back yard.  We waited a few months trying to decide if Dakota would really enjoy moving from the farm to the city.  After Christmas we brought her home with us.  She loved it from the first day.  She was a little skeptical of the wood floors in the house and would hurry from rug to rug.  She loved going outside to play frisbee and fetch.  We had taught her how to catch a small football on the fly when we were in Sioux Falls and she didn't forget how it was done.  She would run back and forth and back and forth for as long as we wanted to stay outside.  We also went running with her most nights after work.  She loved to run.  She had no problems running 10+ miles with us.  She would come home and crash but she loved every minute of those runs.  We often talked about how we hoped when her time was up that it would end quickly - like a heart attack in the middle of a great run.  We know she would have died happy that way.

We also took her everywhere with us.  She would ride in the back of whatever SUV we had.  Travis and I would go shopping and take her along and let her nap and people watch in the back of the ride when it was cool enough out.  She also loved riding around in the back of Travis' Jeep.  She would just stand back there and look and look and drool and drool.  My how she could drool!

We would take her to the lake every Sunday to play ball.  We would chuck a tennis ball as far as we could throw it and she would take off like a bolt of lightening.  She was FAST!!!!  And she had hops too.