One of my absolute favorite parts about being home for the summer is the little bundles of joys that wag their tails at me as my car pulls into the driveway. My little friends that sniff and jump on me every time I come home as if they haven't seen me in a year, even though I only went to get the mail from the mailbox. I loving seeing the little eyeballs and hear the clinking of the collars when all the lights in my house are off at night. But, best of all would be the night time snuggles and kisses that my dogs give me every night before bed.
Dogs are the absolute best animals in the whole wide world. I have little to no actual facts to follow up that statement, but growing up with dogs my whole life has made me realize how dogs really are a girls best friend.
I have four dogs. Yes, four dogs! But, they all hold a very different place in my heart, because each has it's very unique puppy personality. I have a black lab who has brains, but is quite the bully. We have a golden retriever who atypical from the rest of the breed, is dumb as rocks and has an irrational fear of feet. There's the timid Maltese-Yorkie who gets excited to see you for all of five seconds until he realizes you want to pick him up and proceeds to run the other way. And then there's the cocker spaniel who will attack all the other dogs to make sure she is the center of attention. My little puppies are just furry babies as many would say. They have their own unique personalities and little attributes and annoyances in each.
Okay, blah blah blah, enough about my dogs. I could go on about those little boogers forever, but anyways! What I've found over the last 19 years of living with my dogs is that they are always so keen to know when you need someone to play with, when you need someone to snuggle with, when you're sad, and when you're happy. Dogs just seem to know what you need depending on your mood.
For instance, in high school when I stayed home from school with the flu, all my dogs would know that I didn't feel good and would snuggle on the couch with me. They wouldn't bark when someone was at the door, they wouldn't bring toys out, they just sat and snuggled and followed me around.
My favorite nights are the nights when I come home super late from work or when I used to come home at midnight from dance rehearsal, and the whole house was asleep but my black lab was laying in the laundry room waiting next to the garage door for my return.
Dogs just have a keen sense for understanding what we humans need. They're sweet, they're loving, and most importantly when your friends can't be there, they always can be. They may not be around for as long as we are, but I like to think that their little paw prints leave little marks on our hearts that last a lifetime.
