This is Girl Person. A few months ago, when I visited the Humane Society in Tampa, there was a girl dog who kept bringing a ball to everyone who came through the door. She would pick it up, carry it over and offer it, hoping they would notice her. Someone new would walk in, and there she was again with that ball. If they didn’t stop, she didn’t get angry. She didn’t give up. She just picked up her ball and tried the next person.

I haven’t been able to forget her.

Lately, I think I understand that ball.

There are days when I think, someday I’m going to be somebody. And then there are days when I wonder if anyone even sees me now. I don’t mean famous. I don’t mean important in the way the world measures importance. I mean somebody whose work mattered. Somebody who used what she had to make something better. Somebody who didn’t spend all these years trying for nothing.

For almost fifteen years, we have written a blog every single day. Every single day. Through moves, illnesses, losses, celebrations, shelter visits, road trips, emergencies and the ordinary days when there wasn’t anything particularly exciting to write about. We still showed up. Our dogs showed up too. They have never just been the cute faces in the pictures. They have worked beside us for all of these years, and sometimes I don’t think people understand that either.

Our dogs have traveled thousands and thousands of miles. They have gone to shelters with us, participated in videos, waited through photographs, learned routines and adjusted their lives around what we do. They have been the reason someone stopped scrolling, the reason someone read a story and sometimes the bridge between a person sitting at home and a shelter animal they might otherwise never have known existed. They have done far more behind the scenes than anyone watching a thirty-second video or seeing one photograph could possibly know.

And we have worked too.

I feel almost uncomfortable even writing that sentence because I have spent so many years feeling like I have to prove it.

When your work doesn’t involve driving to an office every morning, punching a clock and coming home at five, people can assume you don’t really work. When your office is wherever your laptop happens to be and your coworkers have four legs, somehow it can look from the outside like you’re just traveling around with your dog and posting pictures.

I wish that were all it was.

There are shelter animals to research and information to verify. There are stories to write, photographs to edit, videos to make, emails and messages to answer, websites to maintain, social media platforms to keep up with, shelters to contact, posts to schedule and new ideas constantly needed because yesterday’s way of reaching people may not work tomorrow. There is the daily blog that has been part of our lives for almost fifteen years. There is the emotional weight of seeing animals who desperately need homes and knowing that no matter how hard we work, we cannot help all of them.

And there is never really a point when the work is finished.

I wake up thinking about it. I go to sleep thinking about it. There is always another animal. Another story. Another message. Another post. Another idea that maybe, just maybe, will make someone stop scrolling.

We are exhausted.

And one of the most exhausting parts is feeling like I need to prove that I have a right to be exhausted.

Sometimes I want to say, “We work. Our dogs work. This is our life.”

And lately, when support has been lower than it has been in many years, I have started wondering whether anybody sees that work at all.

That is when I think about that girl with her ball.

Maybe this post will be the one somebody notices. Maybe this story will reach someone. Maybe if I explain it differently, people will understand. Maybe if I show more of what we do, someone will realize how much goes into it. Maybe if I ask one more time, someone will help.

So I pick up the ball again.

I think that is one reason shelter animals have always gotten so deeply into my heart. Our situations are obviously very different, but I understand something about wanting to be seen. A shelter dog doesn’t know about algorithms or fundraising or whether a social media platform decided not to show her picture that day. She doesn’t understand why one kennel gets surrounded by people while everyone walks past hers.

She just knows that the door opened again.

So maybe she picks up her ball.

Maybe this person.

Maybe this time.

And that is exactly why, even on the days when I feel invisible myself, I cannot let them feel invisible if there is something we can do about it.

That is why we started This Is…Me.

We are living in a strange time. AI can create a picture of a dog who never existed, attach a heartbreaking story that never happened to it and send it around the world in minutes. Old photographs can be recycled. Stories can be copied. People don’t always know what is real anymore. And somewhere underneath all of that noise are actual dogs sitting in actual shelters waiting for actual homes.

Those are the ones I want to find.

We want This Is…Me to verify real shelter animals and tell their real stories so they can be seen, believed and rescued. We want shelters to be able to submit animals who need help getting noticed. We want to build toward QR codes on kennels where someone can scan a code and hear that dog’s story told from the dog’s perspective. We want to use the audience and everything we have learned over these fifteen years to make it harder for a real animal to disappear in a world overflowing with content.

And strangely, we are trying to build all of this at one of the most uncertain times in our own lives.

There has been movement with selling this rustico place, but everything is still up in the air this week. We don’t know exactly what will happen. We don’t know where our next home will be or what our life will look like on the other side of this mountain. There are days when that uncertainty is exciting, and there are days when it is terrifying.

But if we are needed back in the United States to do this work, I have to believe that the way to do it will show up.

Maybe the right sponsor will find us. Maybe the right shelter will believe in the idea. Maybe the people who have followed us all these years will help us build the next part. Maybe something we haven’t even thought of yet will open a door.

I don’t know.

But after almost fifteen years, I do know something about showing up.

Showing up matters. Trying again matters. Doing the work when nobody applauds matters. Carrying the ball back to the door one more time matters.

And maybe somebody reading this feels invisible too. Maybe you are doing everything you know how to do and wondering why nobody notices. Maybe you’re working harder than anyone realizes. Maybe you’re exhausted from explaining yourself. Maybe you’re looking around at everyone else’s lives and wondering when it is finally going to be your turn.

Please don’t confuse being unseen with being unimportant.

That girl mattered before anyone took the ball from her mouth. A shelter dog matters before someone fills out an adoption application. Your work can matter before anybody applauds it. Your life can matter while you are still figuring out what comes next.

And maybe I need to hear that as much as anyone.

Because some days I am tired of carrying the ball.

But I am going to pick it up again.

We are going to keep showing up for these animals. We are going to keep saying their names. We are going to keep building This Is…Me. We are going to keep writing the blog, making the videos, researching, verifying, sharing and trying. Our dogs will keep doing what they have always done beside us—reminding people to look a little closer.

We will keep trying for as long as we possibly can.

Maybe someday I’m going to be somebody. But perhaps being somebody isn’t about the whole world knowing your name. Maybe it is about noticing the one everybody else walked past. Maybe it is about making one person stop long enough to see one dog. And then another. And another.

Maybe it is about a girl standing at a shelter door with a ball in her mouth, believing one more time that the next person might finally see her.

I hope somebody did.

And maybe while I keep reminding these animals that they matter, I can learn to believe it about myself too.

P.S. I need to ask you to see us right now. Support is lower than it has been in many years, and while we wait to see what happens with the rustico and where we go from here, the basic costs of living and continuing this work do not stop. Fruitycake needs what he needs. We need groceries. The website has to stay running. The work has expenses. We need enough stability to be able to keep sitting down every day and doing this.

If you can help us with everyday necessities, please use www.tinyurl.com/2tdnecessities. You can also help directly through Venmo: travelingdogs2 or Zelle: Rachael@2travelingdogs.com. You can join our Patreon for $5 a month at www.patreon.com/2travelingdogsrescue. Patreon is especially important because even a small amount of dependable monthly support helps us know that we can keep creating the daily blog and doing the work behind it.

You can also sponsor a real shelter dog through This Is…Me for $35 at www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/Q56YEJJTKXY96. That sponsorship helps us do the due diligence to verify a real shelter animal and create and share their story. You can choose the state you would like to help in, and your name, your dog’s name or both can be recognized on the social media post your sponsorship makes possible.

Please don’t think you have to give a large amount for it to matter. Five dollars matters right now. A Patreon membership matters. Sharing this matters. Sponsoring one dog matters. Helping us buy groceries tomorrow matters.

For almost fifteen years, we have kept carrying the ball to the door for animals waiting for somebody to see them.

Right now, I’m carrying it there for us too.