Don’t know who Tulip is? Start here.
Day 1
MI
NI-
POO
DLE
for breakfast playdate!!!
(He pisses—no joke—eleven times in my yard. And that’s only the ones I see. I wonder if it drives Redford crazy when he goes out there and finds this fucking Napoleon has planted his tiny flag all over Redford’s territory.)
As I’m walking out for work, dude drives up in a pick-up asking if I’ve seen his little white dog, and I let him know Mini-Poodle just left. We chat for a minute. His name’s Jorge. I tell him how well my dogs get along with his. He says, “I know, I couldn’t believe it the first time I saw it happen, I was like, ‘Oh my gahd, those are big dogs!'” He apologizes for Mini-Poodle’s trespasses. I tell him not to worry about it. Oh, how my attitude has changed about that little muppet.
Day 2
Gark! So many corrections when we walk! In a 25-minute loop, I correct Violet a dozen times, Redford only twice, and Tulip an average of every sixth step. Not joking. So frustrating. She’s learned other things. Why can’t she learn this?
Probably because I stopped walking in circles. I’m too tired. I’m tired, and I’m in that feel-bad-don’t-sleep-feel-bad cycle, and I’ve never been less inspired to start a new school year, and I don’t want to walk in fucking circles.
I go to the gym. None of my friends are there. Everything ass to knee is still burny, or as we say, Meredith Baxter Burny, from too many back squats on Saturday. And for the first time ever, I turn around and walk out.
Day 3
I’m at work for a long time, so when I get home, we do the 2.5-mile loop which we haven’t done in weeks. Twice the walk, twice the corrections. Tulip’s real bad at this.
Day 4
I keep taking Tulip into the yard on-leash to try to get the dogs to interact, but Redford and Violet are always so hot after our walks that they just stand on the deck waiting to go into the air conditioning.
Day 5
I decide to try the reintroduction before our walk. Redford runs laps around the shed. Tulip really wants to join him. At one point, Tulip approaches Violet, and I realize I’m too terrified. This is never going to happen.
Tulip and I walk circles in the driveway. She actually does pretty well and sits when I tell her to.
Day 6
To raise awareness of Breed-specific Legislation and the harm that it can do, CCB posts on Facebook pictures of all the adopt-a-bulls with the caption “I am Lennox. End BSL.”
A couple people comment on the photo of Tulip that they want to adopt her. I don’t get my hopes up because people say stuff like that all the time. Except that I do get my hopes up. Kind of a lot.
Day 7
We go to Auntie Wa’s house for dinner, and Tulip does this for about 45 minutes:
When we get in the car, she does this all the way home:
We need to go to Auntie Wa’s more often.
Neither of the people who commented on her photo follow up about adoption.
Could you introduce just Redford and Tulip? Maybe they would get to be friends, then later add Violet into the mix?
That’s what I was trying before. The fact is, I don’t want to do any of it. I’m too scared.