I Have To Ask…Why Didn’t You Get Another Dog?
This is Girl Person, and I get asked this question periodically. “Why didn’t you get another dog?”
Most often, I don’t take the time on social media to answer this because those who have followed us and have been with us through each day since Brickle passed away already know the reasons. But even I, having lived through all the days and seasons since he passed, have asked myself the same question. Because I do want more dogs. I want another dog in the worst way. But I also know we made the right decision not to add to our family yet. It wasn’t the right time immediately after Brickle passed away, and especially now, as we prepare for another enormous transition and eventually a trip back to the USA, it still isn’t the right time. Not yet.
But why? I would like to honestly answer.
Financially, we were not able to make this work here. Not in any of the ways we had hoped. We were not able to produce enough revenue to rescue a house and rescue animals at the same time. Eventually, we had to acknowledge that we could not keep trying to save everything. We had to give up one, and we are.
Pretending that another animal would not add expenses would not be responsible. Food, veterinary care, medications, transportation and emergencies are real. Love is free, but caring properly for an animal is not. Bringing another dog into our family when we weren’t certain we could provide everything that dog deserved would have been about what we wanted instead of what that dog needed. And that isn’t rescue.
Mentally, there is another truth that is harder for me to admit. We did not handle Brickle’s or Digby’s loss well. We still don’t some days. Losing them changed us. The grief followed us here. It sat beside us at dinner. It walked the trails with us. It showed up unexpectedly in photographs, memories and quiet mornings. The truth is that we could not handle another loss.
We are two people who have struggled with depression and loneliness while being mostly by ourselves, trying at the same time to continue helping animals. At some point, we had to admit that helping animals also meant taking care of the two people trying to help them. How could we responsibly bring another animal into our family if we weren’t taking care of ourselves?
And then there is Fruitycake. He isn’t a placeholder until another dog comes along. He isn’t half of 2 Traveling Dogs. He is an individual with his own needs, fears, personality and life. He deserves our attention, and our decisions have to take him into consideration too.
The expense of getting ourselves back to the USA and beginning our next chapter isn’t small either. Did we make a mistake moving here? I don’t say that, and I don’t think that. We cannot change the past, and I wouldn’t want to erase everything these years have taught us. But we can decide what we do with those lessons. And I know what I want to do with them.
I want to help change rescue.
Our new project, This Is…Me, grew from something that has increasingly frightened and frustrated me: real rescue animals are trying to be seen in an online world filled with fake stories, stolen photographs, recycled posts and AI-generated content. When everything can look real, how is someone supposed to know which dog actually needs them? This Is…Me is our attempt to answer that question.
Our goal is to work with shelters and rescue organizations to verify real animals who genuinely need homes and tell their individual stories. We want to create QR kennel cards that can be scanned so someone standing in front of a kennel can hear that dog’s story told in the dog’s voice. We want those same verified stories online, where people can know that the animal they are sharing, caring about or considering adopting actually exists. Seen. Believed. Rescued.
We want shelters to be able to submit dogs to us. We want to visit shelters when we can, meet animals ourselves and tell their stories, while building a system that can eventually help many more animals remotely. We want to work with sponsors who believe that authenticity matters and who understand that helping a real animal be seen can literally change the course of that animal’s life.
And perhaps that is part of the answer to the question I started with. Why didn’t you get another dog?
Because sometimes rescue isn’t bringing another dog into your own house. Sometimes rescue is knowing when you shouldn’t. Sometimes it is making sure the dog already beside you has what he needs. Sometimes it is admitting that you have limits. Sometimes it is selling something you desperately wanted to save because trying to save it is preventing you from doing the work you know you’re supposed to do. And sometimes loving dogs means helping someone else’s dog find the person who has been looking for them.
I recognize that our name is 2 Traveling Dogs. I know there are people who probably expected us to adopt another dog because there were always two before. But our name was never supposed to dictate how many dogs lived in our house. That isn’t what we’re about. This is about being responsible and recognizing animals as individuals, not possessions that exist solely for our enjoyment, our content, our brand or even our sense of worth.
One day, when the time is right, I hope another dog finds us. I hope I look over and there are two dogs again. Maybe even three. But I won’t force that day because someone expects it from us, and I won’t bring an animal into an unstable chapter simply because my heart wants one.
Until that time comes, we will keep doing what we have done since 2011. We will keep trying to Make Rescues The Breed Of Choice. Only now, we are figuring out a new way to do it. And maybe helping thousands of dogs become seen, believed and rescued is exactly where we’re supposed to start.
Girl Person
P.S. We are in one of the biggest transitions our little family has ever faced, and getting ourselves back to the USA and getting This Is…Me off the ground will take resources we simply don’t have on our own. We are two people and one Fruitycake trying to use the platform we’ve built to help shelters, rescue organizations and the animals waiting inside them. If what we’ve done all these years has meant something to you, and if you believe in what we’re trying to build next, please consider helping us keep going.
Necessities: www.tinyurl.com/2tdnecessities
This Is…Me Project: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/ZE5EFF9ZTJD5U
Patreon: www.patreon.com/2travelingdogsrescue
Venmo: @travelingdogs2
Every bit of support right now helps us take care of Fruitycake and ourselves, get through this transition and continue building a project whose purpose is very simple: help real dogs be seen, help people believe their stories are real, and help them get rescued.
