my whole life, when i envisioned getting a dog, i pictured a brown-haired dog. we are a brown-haired family and more importantly, we have dark wood floors throughout our house. the flooring was an intentional choice because i can’t stand the sight of my long, brunette, fallen-out strands on white tile or light floors. also, i wear A LOT of black and navy, even in summer, and didn’t want light dog hairs on my clothes. so last july when we got permission from my dad to get a puppy (yes - at 48 i still felt i needed to ask because the vikings STILL hadn’t won the superbowl) and we’d zeroed in on a frenchie, we immediately decided we would get a “brindle” because they have very dark brown/black hair like we do.

we found a reputable breeder within driving distance and made several trips to meet the mama and daddy (both brindles) while we waited for the mama to get “in season.” (i thought dogs were like people and got their period once a month, but they DON’T… only once every 7 or 8 months.) we were beside ourselves with excitement and i think we watched every cute frenchie puppy video ever posted on youtube. i polled all my dog owning friends about how many times a day their pups pooped and had to go on walks. (everyone said, “twice” and that’s not true - hank poops 4 to 5 times a day.) the kids worked on a list of names and we walked down the dog aisle every time we went to the market… just to look. as the mama’s season approached, i was in frequent contact with the breeder getting updates on the mama’s hormone levels and sonograms. it brought back memories of my own struggles with fertility and going through IVF and probably wasn’t the best for me. and then the mama didn’t get pregnant. oh, it was heartbreaking. we had really bonded with the breeder and it was hard for me to imagine getting a puppy from someone else. i don’t always change course very well. but then our kind breeder connected us with another good breeder who had live puppies. our new breeder sent pictures and all of the puppies were blonde (technically “fawn.”) 

i am a truly brown haired person, in the same way that i am 100% left handed. i wasn’t born with blonde hair that darkened. i didn’t experiment with lemon juice or sun-in or peroxide in high school. my highlights are never bold (thank you liz murphy.) i’ve only ever had two blonde boyfriends - one in fourth grade and one in my twenties and he turned out to be a closet republican so that was never going to be long-term. generally, i have had very few blonde friends. after being in boulder for several years, i did have to make some because this town is just teeming with blue-eyed, yellow-haired super-athletes. but i have to say, as soon as our new breeder confirmed that we could have hank, i got right over his blondness. i started borrowing puppy crates and carriers and fences (thank you aimee, sara, rachel and luciana), going on chewy.com and buying kibble and collars and carseats and baking casseroles and lasagnes. i wasn’t sure how long it would be before i could leave the house again and i wanted to be stocked and ready. and of course, i have lint rollers stashed by every door, in all bathroom drawers and in my car to mitigate the shedding of my darling, blonde boy… who DOES have a black mask, so he’s not completely blonde.

click here to read more about the challenges of hank