I grew up my whole life around rescue dogs of all shapes and sizes. My mom is an avid rescuer and fosters rescue dogs on a regular basis.

After I graduated college, I moved around a bit and found myself in Pittsburgh for a year. Little did my husband, Chris, know, I started to check rescue sites for a dog of our own. I had always wanted a Saint Bernard so I was specifically waiting to find a Saint Bernard mix.

Lo and behold, I came across one early on a Saturday morning. I convinced Chris that we had to check these puppies out. We quickly made our way to the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society in Pittsburgh to see if this particular puppy was still available. She was, and we had her home with us within a day.

Chris and I met each other at the University of Colorado at Boulder, which has a female buffalo named Ralphie as its mascot. We thought Ralphie was the perfect name for our new puppy!

As it turns out, Ralphie is not a Saint Bernard mix. We had a DNA test done on her a year ago and found that she is a mix of a lot of breeds but is mostly German Shepherd, Collie and Beagle. But we couldn’t care less what she’s mixed with. Ralphie has been the best companion for us and we could not imagine our lives without her.

We moved with Ralphie from Pennsylvania to Southern California and then North Carolina, where we live today. Everything is better when Ralphie is with us. Walks and runs are more exciting, work is more fun with her at my feet and evening downtime is cozier with her cuddled up next to us. She truly makes our days brighter. We can’t wait to adopt another dog soon!