Guilt and favoritism.
Luce is my best friend.
She is my heart.
And sometimes I feel so guilty about it. I feel like I shouldn’t have a favorite. I love my boys to be sure, but I don’t feel like I have the connection to either of them that I have to Luce. She’s simply everything I have ever wanted in a dog (except for her bad knees). She’s smart and sassy and bold, she’s sparky and willful and funny, she’s an uninhibited social butterfly, a clown, an Eeevil Red Dog.
Part of it right now is how amazed and proud I am of all the success we have had in rally recently. I vividly remember insisting to my first trainer that I would never ever ever work this dog off leash, much less trial her off leash, and now here we are with a Rally Advanced title and ribbons and she’s been such a good girl. Ok a little naughty, but mostly good! Better than I ever expected, at any rate.
But even if we’d never made it into the rally ring, even if she never brought home one single ribbon, she’d still be my best friend. She sleeps curled up against me every night. I wake up to her face on my pillow, her tongue in my eye. I just feel so in tune with her, and it’s different than the relationships I have with Mushroom and Steve. I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t know how to quantify it. I just know that I love her so much it’s like a knot in my chest sometimes. I love her so much it makes me forget how to breathe.
I’d always heard the phrase “heart dog” and I thought I loved my little poodle a lot, but the relationship with her is nothing compared to my relationship with this red beastie of mine. She has completely colored my ideas about pit bulls. She has completely changed my ways of thinking about dogs and training and, well, everything.
My world would be so different if I hadn’t walked into that particular shelter on that particular day and made eye contact with this particular dog. I can’t even imagine.
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So sweet! And ahhh, my Paisley has a blue butterfly chair that is “hers.” ;) She is also my heart, my baby, the dog I’ve felt has always been with me and I can’t even begin to imagine a life without her. A dog that no matter how many fosters we have and how much I love them, I always joke, “why can’t all dogs be perfect like you Pai?” Of course she’s not perfect, but she sure is perfect for us. =)
I keep expecting to fall desperately in love with my foster dogs, but oddly, as much as I have loved each and every one in their own way, I’ve never been particularly tempted to be a foster failure. (OK, there was this one time, but I was just holding onto him short term until his adopters were ready for him, so I knew it was doomed from the start.) As great as each dog was (and they all were) I’ve simply never connected with another dog the way I have with Daisy.
I had a cat who was the love of my life, well two of them actually. Once they had both passed I said no animal will ever love me like they did and vice versa. I really didn’t believe it was possible. Then I got a pit bull and like you, I feel somewhat guilty, loving her so much. Occasionally, I like to think the spirits of the two cats got together and spun themselves into one extra lovable dog. In truth, they’d probably be horrified by that notion but it works for me. :) Congratulations on the ribbons and the love. That photo of her is sublime too, by the way.
Wow, this made me tear up. I know just what you mean. I have a ’staffie’ (I live in England, so…) and she’s the most wonderful person… and people just don’t understand why I still put up with her sometimes because she’s a typical terrier - very willful and cheeky - and she’s not very dog friendly… but she curls up around me every night and she is always there for me and she just makes things ok. Y’know? We are a team.
Also? Luce is bloody gorgeous! And I am so, so glad you chose her at the shelter :-) It gives me hope.
I have four dogs right now (all rescues), and they’re all sooooo amazing. But during one’s life, there are a few that hit that really special note. The Dog of Dogs. Chester was one of those dogs. He was my GSHP. Now, I have Lucy, my 28 lb. mini-Aussie.
This little dog would fight my wuss of a Pit Bull to save my life. Not that it would be much of a fight; I think Charlie is made of pillow stuffing. :-)
But she’d definitely go up against a Grizzly or a mountain lion if she thought her mom was in danger. My other monkeys? I think they’d say “yer on yer own, ma,” and run home for dinner.
There’s just something very special about her. She follows me everywhere I go. I always have to be in her sight, whether we’re indoors or out. She sleeps practically on top of me at night, and welcomes me when I come home with so much love, it’s practically unimaginable.
I guess I’m trying to say that we love them all with our entire hearts. Some just manage to burrow in a little deeper. It doesn’t diminish the love we have for the others; it’s just a little harder to explain, that’s all.
That is the nice thing about dogs…. you can admit to having a favorite. Versus skin-kids… you can’t admit to a favorite if you want to be a good parent…. at least not to the kids.
Jen
I think we all have favorites. Miss M was my first dog I owned myself as and adult, and I invested a lot of time and training with her. Plus we have a lot of fun memories of being bachelorettes together.
Yeah I have a favorite too. That’s all I’m sayin. Kudos to you for admiting it. :-)