This morning was cloudy and spritzy, and the gate was still closed at the park.\u00a0 I took the dogs off the leash and let them scamper.\u00a0 The Eno was high on its banks from the rain, rushing, clay-red.\u00a0 Violet took off, and I didn’t know where she had gotten to until I heard sound like a bunch of sixth graders trying out their oboes in band class for the first time.<\/p>\n
I traipsed through the brush to the riverbank and watched Violet’s black head chugging through the current, a V ripping its way behind her and a flock of geese scattered ten yards in front of her.\u00a0 Soon she and her prey were gone around the river’s bend, so I wended my way back to the path and walked downstream.<\/p>\n
About this time last year, maybe a little later, Violet and Boone and I had been hiking and stopped to splash in a pond.\u00a0 A lonely goose honked his way across its diameter.\u00a0 Violet could not resist the siren call of a goose.\u00a0 In she dove.\u00a0 Every time she would get close, the goose would crank himself up and alight on the water forty yards away.\u00a0 But my stubborn girl kept after him.\u00a0 Boonie didn’t like to swim, so he ran around the water’s edge hoping one or both of them would come ashore.\u00a0 I followed him at a saunter.\u00a0 Ten minutes later, Boone and I both sat down in the grass.\u00a0 Ten minutes after that, I took Boone, walked into the woods, and hid behind a tree, hoping Violet would follow her pack.<\/p>\n
No way.\u00a0 She kept paddling.\u00a0 I worried she might get exhausted, a cramp, I don’t know.\u00a0 Would I be able to get to her and pull her out of the water?\u00a0 This was a big pond, and I’m no champion swimmer.<\/p>\n
After a straight forty minutes of doggy-paddling, she finally gave up and came to shore, her chest heaving, her eyes on fire.<\/p>\n
So back to this morning, I walked along the path calling Violet’s name.\u00a0 Redford sprinted, stopped, listened, looked, sprinted.\u00a0 I prayed she hadn’t gotten too fixated, the roaring river hadn’t taken her a mile downstream, the banks had offered her a foot-hold to climb out.<\/p>\n
I crossed a bridge.\u00a0 A tinkling, a blur of black.\u00a0 She trotted through the brambles toward us.<\/p>\n
Redford gave her effusive kisses on the mouth.\u00a0 I let his kisses speak for both of us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This morning was cloudy and spritzy, and the gate was still closed at the park.\u00a0 I took the dogs off the leash and let them scamper.\u00a0 The Eno was high on its banks from the rain, rushing, clay-red.\u00a0 Violet took off, and I didn’t know where she had gotten to until I heard sound like … Continue reading V<\/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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animules"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767","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=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":768,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions\/768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}