“A dog is nothing but a furry person.” —Anonymous

For those of you who are new to this blog, you might not know that I’m pretty attached to my dog.

OK, attached probably isn’t the right word. I love my dog.

I love that she’s happy to see me when I walk in the door from work. I love that she wakes up every morning excited to meet a new day full of new opportunities. I like it when she at least pretends to listen when I talk to her, when she comes to check on me when I’m crying, and the way she runs up the stairs at top speed and looks for me in all the wrong places.

I’ve had Muffin the Wonder Poodle since she was about a month old. She weighed about 3 pounds when we got her, and I only just realized that I weighed about the same when I was born. I got Muffin during my sophomore year of college, after a beloved dog of mine had died in an accident. And Muffin quickly became my dog, even if I was away at college most of the time.

Muffin lived with me during the summer I lived in Columbia and had an internship in Jefferson City. She moved with me to Nashville when I knew no one. She’s traveled with me, going on road trips to New Orleans and the Smokey Mountains and to visit my brother when he worked at a camp during the summers. She’s been a constant.

And even though she’s old and grouchy and she doesn’t have many teeth. Even though her hair has faded from its bright red to a strawberry blonde, there’s still something special about her in my opinion.

Mostly because every once in awhile she looks at me like she thinks that I’m the most amazing person that ever lived. And everyone needs to have someone who thinks that about them, even it it is just a dog.