Goodnight, Gilbert.

While on a weekend getaway with our dear friends, the Turbolds, Aagii got a message from Zaya, our dear friend and house sitter, that Gilbert had run away from home again. I wrote about Gilbert’s origin story and runaway tendencies here.

It was a sleepless night for everyone. I had put an Apple Tag on Gilbert’s collar, but he wasn’t found at the location last provided (an update from 11:38 a.m. on Saturday). By the time we got back home from our weekend in Terelj on Sunday evening, he still wasn’t home. I took Ketchup on a walk to do some literal sniffing around the location the Apple Tag gave us, somewhat convinced he was being held hostage at the house on the corner, but I didn’t get new info. We walked back home in the dark for another sleepless night.

On Monday morning, we went out searching again. Driving slowly along the dirt road behind all the houses in our neighborhood, we spotted a golden retriever alone but wearing a collar. I hopped out of the car again with Ketchup to do a closer inspection of the area on foot, looking down into the drainage ditch and under the thermal heating network pipes. Up ahead, a man and a woman were working together to lift a green bag. The woman waved at us, but I didn’t recognize her as Zaya from far away. When I realized it was her, my heart sank. I knew Gilbert was in the bag they were trying to carry, and my chest got tight with dread.
Zaya and her husband, Dagvaa, started a new search when Aagii and I did, but they started from the other end of the dirt road and found him first. It looked like he had been hit by a car, possibly by the busy street registered as his last location, and he tried to make it back home. It looked like he took a hit to the side of his head. He’d been there for a while, possibly all of Sunday. My heart sank even further, and my chest opened up as I wailed.

Gilbert was taken to Dagvaa and Zaya’s farm, where he was buried along a row of trees and fruit-bearing bushes. He had traditional Mongolian funerary rites but also a Christian prayer and loving words from Zaya. After picking Terra up from school and breaking the news, we took her to the farm to say goodbye and help plant a new berry bush beside him.

I’m grateful he was found and laid to rest by two people who loved him and knew how well we loved him. He is deeply, deeply missed after seven years of being part of our lives.

While he was lucky in all his other solo ventures that started with a mad dash out of the open gate, I always worried that this would be how we lost him. He was my second chance to have a dog with as gentle and sweet a soul as Praxis. We were so very lucky that Gilbert's farthest journey brought us together and for all the years of being able to love him.