Six years ago today, someone tall, dark, and handsome came into my life.

Six years ago today, I called a phone number I’d torn off a “puppies free to good home” sign at a Starbucks in Savannah. I’d been wanting a dog, but until that point my friends had successfully, and for valid reasons, talked me out of getting one. That day, though, I went to lunch and saw people sitting at outdoor tables with their dogs and felt a strong sense of loss. I wouldn’t regret getting a dog, I thought, but I already regretted not having one. I’d been carrying around that phone number for three weeks, so I told myself I’d call, and if the puppies were all gone, it wasn’t meant to be.

One puppy was left. Actually, he’d been adopted but then returned — a Starbucks employee had taken him for a week, decided to move across the country, and gave him back. The couple who were trying to find him a home were young, not well off, and already had two large dogs. They’d rescued an underfed, stray German shepherd, and they had no clue she was pregnant until she gave birth to eight puppies. Seven had gone to good homes, but there was this one left, a gangly, leggy 10-week-old, already out of the cute puppy phase and into the chewing-everything-within-reach phase. I was in love. I took him home immediately.

Now I know that was the most inane, irresponsible way to acquire a puppy — no planning, no preparation, no idea when I woke up on the morning of October 16 that I would go to bed that night with a PUPPY in my life. But I did it, and I certainly don’t regret adding him to my world. It’s been crazy and tumultuous and exasperating and funny. He’s been across the continent with me and halfway back.

He’s run around a Florida beach,

played in snow,

“hiked” in Savannah (where a sign at the trailhead warned us about the 10-foot elevation gain),

and camped in a rustic cabin in Colorado (where the hike from the outhouse involved more than a 10-foot elevation gain).

He likes many of the things I like,

such as my kitties

and road trips (as long as he can remain within physical contact at all times)

and slugs

and his “cousin,” Chief.

He’s less sure about the small people in my life.

He is loyal and protective. I have no doubt that he would give his life for me, if, heaven forbid, he ever thought he needed to. When I lived in Savannah, a man came by the house one day. I talked to him through the front window because I didn’t want to try to hold my dog off him, which I would have had to do if I’d opened the door. Bishop was right there next to me the whole time, paws propped on the windowsill, barking. The man, it turned out, was a sales rep from a home security company. “What’s your current security provider?” he asked. “Are you happy with them?” I looked at Bishop. “That’s my current security provider, and yeah, I’m very happy with him.” The man laughed. “I’m not even going to try to sell you anything, because that dog is much more effective than anything I have!”

This post is hilarious and got me thinking about all the reasons my dog is BETTER than a Congressperson any day!

• He will always have my back. No one will ever seduce him away from me with a larger campaign contribution. Even if someone showed up with a bag of his VERY FAVORITE FOOD EVER, he would add them to his roster of loved ones, not replace me with them.

• I trust his instincts. When we hike, he sometimes acts skittish at certain forks in the trail. I pay attention. If he dislikes someone, I pay attention.

• When he gets too obnoxious, I can just put him in his crate for awhile.

• Unlike Congress, my dog has decided he has a job and he’s going to do it. His job, as he sees it, is to protect me, warn me about intruders (which in his universe means the mail carrier, other dogs that have the audacity to walk on his street, children, rabbits, and loud vehicles–but our differing definition of “intruders” is a small quibble compared to the quibbles I have with my Congresspersons), and provide companionship. He throws himself into his “job” with all the extreme and energetic enthusiasm he possesses. He does not take holidays or vacations.

• He makes me laugh. And it’s the kind of laughter that comes from a genuine sense of joy and mirth, not the kind that’s an expression of cynical derision (which is the only laughter my elected officials provide).

• Sometimes when he gets really excited, he pees uncontrollably, so depending on the situation, he has to wear a diaper. Unlike Congress, though, his diaper is never full of …um… something else.

My life is richer, more filled with laughter and joy and great stories (and a couple of broken fingers, a somersault through the air, and a few embarrassing incidents), more tangibly affectionate, because he’s in it.

No matter what — how fat I get, how moody I am, whether I’m a professional success or an apathetic slug, whether no one else in the world loves me — he will always be my biggest fan.

And it’s mutual. I love you, Bishop!