When I was four years old, my family got our first dog. She was a Golden Retriever, and she was perfect. I was the youngest in the family, so my mom let me name her. And when you’re only four years old, it’s not like you spend much downtime thinking about the perfect name for your brand new puppy. But my mom loves roses, so I named her Rosie, and Rosie was the best first dog you could ever have.

Rosie wasn’t like other dogs. She didn’t bite, and she never barked, and she liked people a whole lot more than she liked other dogs. But she was the sweetest puppy in the whole wide world. She sang to you when you walked in the door. Now, she didn’t break out her best chords of Mariah Carey, but she whined so loud and she cried like she was so happy to see you. She was our house’s greatest welcome. Coming home to her was the best part of coming home.

I remember when I would get in a fight with someone in elementary school, and I would have tears in my eyes as I got off the bus, and Rosie’s singing put a smile back on my face. I would sit on the kitchen floor, laying my head on her as she napped, and she was who I could always count on to make me feel better.

Rosie truly was the world’s greatest dog, and my heart broke the day we had to put her down when she was 12 years old. The dog who could make my tears go away was leaving, and it felt like the tears from that pain would never go away. Everything felt different. There was no singing dog greeting you at the door when you came home. There was no happy furry friend in her bed when you came downstairs in the morning.

And when the tears finally dried, I told my mom I never wanted another dog. There was no way there could be a better dog than Rosie. There was no way I wanted any other dog than Rosie.

But the house was too quiet for my mom, and she needed another puppy to make things feel a little bit more normal. So we got Ellie: the dog who fixed our broken hearts. Ellie is goofy. She is fluffy, and she is a whole lot more naughty of a puppy than Rosie ever was.

Ellie is not the perfect dog. She barks sometimes if you ignore her, and she bites sometimes (okay, she only bites me when I’m annoying her), and she has ripped apart a couple of things she shouldn’t have (a few shoes, an advent tree, a rug).

There are a lot of things that make Ellie a not-so-perfect dog, but there are also a lot of things that make her a girl’s best friend. There are a lot of things that make her my best friend. She lets me dress her up in everything imaginable (sunglasses, hats, sweatshirts). She sits down and leans into me so I can give her a hug, and she gives me the most aggressive face kisses when I am least expecting it. Most of all, she puts the biggest smile on my face.

Sometimes having a dog makes you wonder why you ever need to go out of the house to have human interaction. Why go out to a bar with a bunch of crying drunk people on a Friday night when you can cuddle on the couch with your puppy? Why ask someone to hang out when you know your dog will hang out with you? (Because hello: they have to. They can’t go anywhere without you.)

I don’t know a lot for certain, but what I do know is that I will always have a dog, for the rest of my life, and here’s hoping a lot of them are less than perfect.