Dear Violet,<\/p>\n
You might wonder how I could’ve written to Redford before I wrote to you.\u00a0 Lots of reasons, I guess.\u00a0 He’s so loud<\/em> and there<\/em> all the time.\u00a0 He’s also my replacement dog for Boonie, whom I’m still mourning.\u00a0 Mostly, though, I wrote to him first because I feel like I could fill tomes about you, and it’s hard for me to start.\u00a0 Anne Lamott says to start with a one-inch square and just write about that.\u00a0 I’ll start with how I got you.<\/p>\n My co-worker Taren had gotten Jake the Springer Spaniel-Lab Mix a year prior and was in LURVE with him.\u00a0 She thought I should get a dog.\u00a0 I said thanks but no thanks.\u00a0 Too much of a tether to my house.\u00a0 Sometimes I liked to go straight from work to the gym or out with my buddies and not come home until late.\u00a0 Couldn’t do that if someone was at home in a kennel and going to piss herself.<\/p>\n Anyhow, one Saturday afternoon, Taren called.\u00a0 She was at the shelter and there were these three little lab puppies that I had<\/em> to come see.\u00a0 I begged off with the excuse that I had just walked 20 miles.\u00a0 (I really had just walked 20 miles; Wa and I were training to walk a marathon.)\u00a0 She mentioned the shelter was open on Sunday afternoons, and I said I’d think about it.\u00a0 I did think about it.\u00a0 That was all.<\/p>\n Monday came around, and Taren offered to go to the shelter with me–good god, she was persistent.\u00a0 I said OK, but I told her I didn’t want her to be disappointed if I didn’t adopt a dog.\u00a0 We went inside, and those three lab puppies sure were cute, right there snuggled up in the first cage.\u00a0 Most of the dogs were arfing, “Take me, take me,” and I died a little inside.\u00a0 But then I turned around and saw you, a pit bull-lab mix, about 5 months old, brownish-black with a white chest and little white reflector pads on your heels.\u00a0 The sheet posted on your kennel said in bold print ‘Cruelty\/Confiscation’.\u00a0 You stood up on the cage and stared deep in my eyes and licked my fingers.\u00a0 That was it.\u00a0 It was Thursday before I took you home, what with my having to cry to my therapist about it and the shelter’s being closed on Wednesdays and your having to get your lady-surgery, but that moment sealed the deal.\u00a0 There was no backing out.<\/p>\n Rosie called me on the night I brought you home and demanded, “Nunu, what about the puppy?”<\/p>\n I said, “What about<\/em> the puppy?”<\/p>\n “What did you name the puppy?” she demanded.<\/p>\n “Well, I haven’t named her anything yet,” I told her.<\/p>\n “You could name her Violet,” she said.\u00a0 I don’t know where she came up with that, but it was perfect.<\/p>\n More anon.<\/p>\n Love,<\/p>\n Amy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Violet, You might wonder how I could’ve written to Redford before I wrote to you.\u00a0 Lots of reasons, I guess.\u00a0 He’s so loud and there all the time.\u00a0 He’s also my replacement dog for Boonie, whom I’m still mourning.\u00a0 Mostly, though, I wrote to him first because I feel like I could fill tomes … Continue reading Dear Violet<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animules","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":587,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions\/587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}