Finding your thing

Lois doesn’t quite fit in.

If you pay even the slightest bit of attention to myself or my husband online, you know we have a large, silly dog named Lois. We love Lois, who will be two years old one week from today, but Lois is…special. And being special sometimes makes Lois’ life a challenge.

Perhaps it’s because her biological parents were biological siblings. Maybe it’s because, as Mike sometimes suspects, I let her be her a little too much. Either way,

Lois being Lois.

Lois is an 80-lb dog whose response to gravity is something closer to 130 pounds of force. She sits on people instead of next to them. She waits outside the bathroom when you shower so she can lick up all the bits of soap left in the tub. She loves to lean on people. Standing and leaning against people an actual hobby of hers. When we go to the dog park, while all of the humans love Lois, she has to pretend to play with the other dogs, because they just don’t get

Rosie plays how Lois plays, which, as one can imagine, not a lot of other dogs enjoy.

her. She just follows them around with a smile on her face and they generally ignore her.

I’ve known a lot of dogs in my life, and while I do think they are all special in some way, I’ve never met a dog that is special in the way Lois is. She’s just kind of a weirdo. Until she goes to visit Rosie. Rosie is my dad’s dog. Though way smaller than Lois, and notably smarter and better trained, Rosie loves Lois. They play all day. When I stay over at

Lois and Rosie, BFFs.

my dad’s house, Lois wakes me up at six in the morning because she knows Rosie is around. It’s exciting for me too, because despite having a loyal internet following, she just doesn’t fit in most places with most dogs.

I feel like we’re all a little like Lois until we find our Rosie. Sometimes our Rosie is the right job, or the right person, or the right community, or right home. Before we find it, we feel like weirdos, following the other dogs around with a smile, pretending like we’re playing even though they’re ignoring us. We lean

This is how happy Lois is to be with Rosie. Even when they’re stuck in a kennel.

against things to pass the time. And then, along comes our Rosie. She plays like we play. And we know we weren’t doing anything wrong by being ourselves, we just hadn’t found the right thing to be ourselves with.

Yay for the Rosies in all of our lives. And yay for allowing ourselves to be weirdos until we find them.

Posted in General Life WhatnotTagged dogs finding purpose fitting in Lois the dog