Goldie Fawn came into our lives around February 2012, when we were living in Houston, Texas. Like so many of the best things in life, we weren’t looking for her. She simply found us.

One morning, while the children were being dropped off at preschool, another mom arrived with a little puppy in her car. On her way to school, she had driven past a construction site and spotted this tiny pup narrowly escaping being run over by the construction trucks.

She stopped and asked one of the workers if the puppy belonged to anyone. He told her that she was the last of a litter that had been born at the construction site. The workers had been looking after her as best they could, feeding her leftovers from their lunches.

The mom couldn’t leave her there, so she scooped up the homeless little pup and continued on to preschool with her children.

And that is where our family collided with Goldie.

We fell in love with her the minute we saw her.

Goldie grew up right alongside her human brother and sister and has appeared in every back-to-school photo for the past 13 years. Poor Goldie—the proverbial student who will never graduate!

Over the years, people have often stopped us to ask what breed she is. We proudly tell them, “She’s a Houston Terrier.”

They usually respond, “Oh! I’ve never heard of that breed!”

We just smile.

The truth is, Goldie is a little mutt with some definite terrier DNA. But to us, she will always be our one-of-a-kind Houston Terrier.

Goldie isn’t simply our dog. She is the third child in our family—and we’re fairly certain she has absolutely no idea that she is a dog.

She loves taking naps with Dad, and her favorite pastime is hunting chipmunks, much to the chipmunks’ dismay. She loves freeze dried chicken, and long walks. Most of all, she loves being wherever her family is.

Goldie is heading into her golden years now, although no one seems to have told her. She certainly doesn’t act her age, and she has no intention of slowing down.

From a tiny puppy being fed construction workers’ lunch scraps in Houston to a deeply loved member of our family, Goldie has filled our home with laughter, companionship, loyalty, and more joy than we ever could have imagined that morning at preschool.

We thought we rescued Goldie.

But after all these years, it feels much more like Goldie found us.

And we will forever be grateful that she did.