Before today’s blog begins, we want to thank everyone who is part of our Patreon family. Your $5 monthly membership helps us keep writing, creating, sharing real rescue animals and building This Is…Me so that more shelter animals can be seen, believed and rescued. Patreon members get our full weekday blogs, Fruitycake’s audio blogs and special content we don’t share everywhere else. If you have been thinking about joining, today would mean so much to us. Boy Person has quietly made the work of 2 Traveling Dogs possible for years, and your support helps all of us keep going together.
www.patreon.com/2travelingdogsrescue
And now Fruitycake would like to tell you about his best friend.
This is Fruitycake. Everyone enters the world differently. I personally believe that when dogs enter the world, we already know a few things. We know we are supposed to find our persons, food is extremely important and naps should never be rushed. I am fairly certain that I entered the world barking loudly with an unexplained hunger for pizza. Some things are simply inside you from the beginning.
Today is the day Boy Person entered the world. I was not there, obviously, but knowing Boy Person, I imagine he arrived, looked around, noticed three things that needed fixing and wondered why nobody had gone to the grocery store yet. Because that is Boy Person. He isn’t someone who wants a big fuss made over him. He would much rather be doing something for somebody else than have everyone stop what they’re doing to pay attention to him. So today isn’t really about counting years. It’s about noticing what he has done with them.
For years, Boy Person drove the big blue treat wagon RV all over America while 2 Traveling Dogs visited shelters, met rescue animals and told their stories. Mile after mile, state after state and shelter after shelter, he got us there. There were mountains and highways and breakdowns and wrong turns and probably quite a few occasions when Girl Person said, “Are you SURE this RV fits?” while Boy Person reconsidered every decision that had led him to that particular road. But he kept driving.
People saw the Big Blue Treat Wagon. They saw the shelters, the stories and Girl Person writing. They saw Digby and Brickle, and now they see me. But somebody had to drive us there, keep everything going and make it possible for everyone else to do what they did. Boy Person did.
And I am not the first dog who knew what kind of person he was. There was Brickle. Boy Person was Brickle’s friend from the time Brickle was little, although Brickle apparently had a slightly unusual way of expressing friendship because he enjoyed scaring Boy Person for fun. Once, Brickle scared him so badly that Boy Person broke a wine glass. I was not there, but I have heard this story and would like to formally congratulate Brickle. Scaring a grown person into breaking glass requires talent and commitment.
Then there was Digby. When Digby got older and the mountains became too much for his legs, Boy Person carried him up them. Sometimes being someone’s best friend means walking beside them, and sometimes it means realizing they can’t walk anymore and saying without needing to say anything at all, I’ve got you. Boy Person always knew what flavor ice cream Digby liked, too. That may sound like a little thing, but I don’t think it is. Knowing someone’s favorite ice cream means you paid attention. Carrying an old dog up a mountain means you noticed what his heart still wanted to do even when his legs couldn’t do it anymore.
And then there was me.
Here’s something you may not know. Boy Person found me. There were 690 dogs at that shelter, and somehow, looking online through all of those dogs, Boy Person saw me. I don’t know exactly what made him stop. Maybe it was my face. Maybe there was something in my eyes. Maybe he could somehow sense my future pizza expertise through a computer screen. But out of 690 dogs, Boy Person found Fruitycake.
He didn’t know then that I would become his best friend. He didn’t know the mountains we would walk together, the places we would go, the blogs I would apparently write or the amount of pizza supervision I would eventually require. He just saw one dog among 690 and stopped. Sometimes I wonder how many of the biggest things in our lives begin exactly like that. Someone notices. Someone stops. Someone says, That one. And somebody’s whole world changes.
Boy Person is my best friend now. Girl Person may have opinions about my official ranking system, but this is my blog. He walks with me, takes care of me and makes me feel safe. Dogs know who shows up for them. Brickle knew. Digby knew. And I know too.
Boy Person takes care of Girl Person in much the same way. He does the laundry. He gets the groceries. He fixes things and carries things. He works hard so our family can keep doing this work for animals and rescues. When something goes wrong, he is usually already figuring out how to make it right. A lot of what Girl Person is able to do happens because Boy Person is quietly doing something else that needs to be done, and there is a little bit of him underneath everything 2 Traveling Dogs has accomplished.
Girl Person told me something about Boy Person that explains him better than almost anything else. Boy Person doesn’t want to be remembered someday. He wants to make a difference every day. That stopped me in my tracks, and I stop for very few things that aren’t edible.
We spend an awful lot of our lives wondering what other people think about us. Do they like us? Do they understand us? Do they appreciate what we’re doing? What will they say about us someday? Maybe those aren’t the questions that matter most. Maybe the better question is simply: Did someone’s day become a little better because I was here?
Did an animal get another chance? Did someone who was exhausted have a little less to carry? Did somebody have groceries because you went to get them? Did clean clothes appear because you did the laundry? Did an old dog get to see the top of another mountain because you carried him there? Did a dog get his favorite ice cream because you remembered the flavor? Did a little dog get to spend his life scaring you because you loved him anyway? Did one dog out of 690 get noticed because you stopped scrolling long enough to see him?
Those things don’t usually get applause, and sometimes nobody else even knows they happened. But they matter. Maybe making a difference isn’t something grand that happens at the end of a life when everyone looks backward and decides what you meant. Maybe it happens while you’re living it—in grocery stores and laundry rooms, on highways and hiking trails, in shelters and kitchens, beside old dogs and scared dogs and ridiculous dogs. Maybe your life isn’t measured by how many people remember your name. Maybe it’s measured by how many lives were a little different because you were here.
So today, on the day Boy Person entered this world, I don’t want to count years. I want to count differences. The animals we met because he drove us there. The work Girl Person could do because he was taking care of something else. Brickle having a friend who loved him even after the wine-glass incident. Digby getting another mountain when his legs couldn’t get him there anymore. And one dog sitting in a shelter among 690 others whose entire life changed because Boy Person happened to see him online.
Me.
You don’t have to change the whole world to make your time here matter. Make dinner for someone who’s tired. Take care of an animal. Carry something heavy. Send the message. Do the laundry. Share the shelter dog nobody is noticing. Drive the miles. Remember the ice cream flavor. Carry somebody up the mountain when they can’t make it on their own. Or just stop scrolling for a minute, because maybe there is a Fruitycake somewhere waiting for someone to notice.
And Boy Person, thank you for driving the big blue treat wagon, getting the groceries, doing the laundry, taking care of Girl Person, carrying Digby, putting up with Brickle and always showing up. Most of all, thank you for scrolling through 690 dogs and somehow stopping at me.
I’m very glad that on this day, all those years ago, you entered the world. Because eventually, you found mine. And I think that made a difference for both of us.
Although I still have one question.
Did you bring pizza?
Fruitycake
P.S. From Fruitycake
Since today is Boy Person’s day, I would really love to surprise him with something extremely fancy tonight: homemade nachos. Yes, we live an extravagant lifestyle. 😂 If you would like to help us get the groceries for a little nacho dinner—and the regular necessities we need to keep going—it would mean a lot, especially while support remains very low.
Your support isn’t only helping with dinner or groceries. It keeps the blog going, keeps our rescue outreach going and helps us continue building This Is…Me, where we verify and share real shelter animals so they can be seen, believed and rescued. You can also sponsor a This Is…Me dog for $35, choose the state, and have your name or your dog’s name included as the sponsor of that dog’s feature. Shelters and rescues that would like to submit an animal can email rachael@2travelingdogs.com.
Necessities:
www.tinyurl.com/2tdnecessities
Patreon — $5 a month for the full weekday blogs, audio blogs and special content:
www.patreon.com/2travelingdogsrescue
Venmo:
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And if helping with a homemade nacho dinner today sounds a little too ordinary to make a difference, I think you may have missed the point of Boy Person’s blog. Sometimes the ordinary things are exactly the things that matter most. 🐾❤️
