Dear Buttercup,

Today is March 24.
It is not a birthday.
It is not an official anniversary of a marriage or a death.
But it is a special day to me. And to you, too, I hope.
Two years ago today, the allergic husband said yes to adding you to our family. He said yes to bringing you indoors and we embarked on an adventure for which we were grotesquely under prepared.
I said I would never share my home with a beast. I said those words just that way. And I meant them 100%.
When we brought you home, I tried to block off the stairs with a twin mattress we were getting rid of. I figured you’d be a downstairs dog only. I tried to get you sleeping in a kennel in the guest room. When that didn’t work, I tried to attach you to Andrew, who has a bedroom downstairs.
But things evolved, as things often do. And now, not only do I share my home with a beast, I have on occasion shared my bed with the beast and don’t view you as beastly at all. You attached yourself to me. You are my bdff. Best dog friend forever.

I’m that person now.

When I showed up at the front door of your former owner and you bolted out the door and down the sidewalk going 55 miles an hour, I wore an expression of shock. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Were you a naughty dog? Were you a runner? What I know now is that you love to be outside. You love your walks. When you get your outside time, you don’t bolt. You weren’t getting any time outside before you came to live with us.

I’ve wondered 1000 times why 2 different owners gave you away. What did they know that I didn’t? What about you was hard that would cause someone to willingly place you somewhere else? I still don’t know the answer to this one. The only answer I have is that you were born to be with us and we just weren’t ready to embrace that fact until that day 2 years ago.

You are the perfect dog. Perfectly housebroken. Perfect happy. Perfectly snuggly. You do become a demon when a golf cart goes by. And golf carts do go by a lot. But I have to give you a pass on a few things.

They call dogs like you rescues. And in a sense, I do think we rescued you from a situation that wasn’t ideal. But the real truth of the situation is that you rescued us. The whole family came together to adore you in a unity we were really craving. We took walks together with you on the golf course. Together we bathed you about 15 times the first month because we thought we had to for allergies. We came to find out that we were cleaning you to death, so we stopped that business.  

There have been a few accidents along the way. A few times we gave you a little too much freedom and almost condemned you to the mouth of a Belgian sheep dog. A few times we didn’t interrupt your need to roll around in another dog’s fresh waste. A few times we backed into you in the kitchen and almost killed the both of us. That one time we tried to teach you to swim. But mostly, we’ve gotten it right. We adore you. You are a hairy 5^th child that doesn’t require a lot and rarely talks back. You are the best of all of us.

I don’t know what was wrong with your two previous owners, but I can tell you one thing for certain. We are your family.. We will always be your family. You are home now.

So let me hoist you up onto your dad’s side of the bed and tell you all about what happens when a guy travels to New York City without his wife. This is a good story. You’ll like it. It starts with New York City and it ends like this:

You are my bdff and I am your mama.

Happy Dogiversary, Buttercup Snapp.