Goodbye Sweet Violet

Many of you know that we have a dog that is so ugly she's cute. She's a white boxer and SO adorable. She and Carter are thick as thieves. They have SO much fun together.
Some may wonder why her name is Violet. (She's a 60 pound white dog...) When the boxer rescue called us (we had been talking for several months about adopting one) they told us that she had been found on the streets of Yuma pregnant and SPRAY PAINTED purple. PURPLE!!! It absolutely broke my heart. I told them that we wanted her for sure and called the foster home immediately. The woman told me that we couldn't take her for a few weeks because she was raising 5 little kittens that had been orphaned. (If that doesn't melt your heart...) When we did finally get her she was nothing short of darling. When Carter came along a year later she really proved herself. She was SO gentle with him. With Addi it was the same way. She would rough house with Carter but be really gentle with Addilyn. In the past few weeks Addi even decided that she liked Violet. She would crawl over to her and jingle her collar.
Anyways, we are in San Diego right now and Kevin, my brother, is feeding Violet. When he went over there yesterday morning she was, what he thought, sleeping. When she didn't respond to her name he went over to her and realized that she was dead.
This came as a HUGE shock to us. We knew when we adopted her that boxers don't have long life spans but she was only about 6. We thought we had another 2 years or so. We think she had a brain aneurysm or something along those lines. Aside from the obvious shock, we had to have my three wonderful siblings deal with her because we were gone. Kelly finally found a nice company that came and got her and cremated her.
I cried for a good portion of the day for several reasons. Most of all, how do you tell your 3 year old little boy that his dog just died. On top of that, I felt HORRIBLE that she was alone when she died. I am also going to miss her. Here are my top ten things I am going to miss about our little Vi.
10. She's my company when Bryan is gone playing basketball late at night.
9. She LOVED to play hide and seek with Bryan. He would hide somewhere and then call her name and she would search and search until she found him.
8. She would let Carter yank on her tail as much as he wanted to. (and she actually enjoyed it!!)
7. She was normally ok with me kicking her out into the backyard when people came over.
6. She LOVED lounging in the sun when the weather was nice.
5. She would let Carter flop her chops up and down while he sang songs pretending she was the one singing. (again, she loved this. She would way her tail the entire time.)
4. She ALWAYS came when Bryan whistled for her. (Carter quickly learned how to imitate the whistle and would do it and then yell "Bliolet!")
3. She loved to lay underneath our bed with nothing showing at all.
2. She had the BEST puppy dog eyes.
1. She was Carters best friend and played SO well with both of the kids.
Don't get me wrong; there will definitely be some things I won't miss: holes in the backyard, poop all over the grass, white dog hair all over EVERYTHING, Carter smelling like a dog 10 minutes after his baths, she chewed up one of my high heels about 4 years ago... things like that.
The hardest part about this whole thing was telling Carter. He doesn't really get it. We're not home right now so I'm sure it will be different when we get home and she's not there.
When we told him that Violet went to live with Heavenly Father he said, "But how did she get there? She doesn't have a car." We told him that Heavenly Father came and got her and he said, "But she can't go play with Heavenly Father. I want to play with her." What do you say to that? It was heartbreaking. And of course, made me cry all over again.
Maybe we'll get another dog someday. Bryan said she was the only dog we would ever have. I haven't ever really fought him on it because I though she would be around for a while longer... We'll see I guess. (I normally win these kinds of things and I have a feeling the kids will be on my side...)
We will really miss our sweet Violet. She was a great dog and most of all, she loved my kids. When I get home I'll add some pictures.