It was the ears that got me. An acquaintance had posted a picture on Facebook of a scrawny shepherd-mix stray her husband had found at the Beeville post office, head down, face buried in a food bowl, floppy brown ears sticking straight out like bat wings. And even though my husband, Jimmy, and I had broached the subject of dog ownership (mostly through texting each other cute photos of available dogs we found on various rescue sites), we certainly had not decided that we should get a dog. After all, we lived in an apartment! We worked full time jobs! We liked to travel! We weren’t responsible for anyone but ourselves!

But those ears.

Before I knew it, something impulsive in me had sent a message inquiring about the little furry thing. My friend responded quickly, telling me more about the pup and her disposition, letting me know that while they would love to keep her, it just wasn’t the right time for them and asking if we'd like to meet her that weekend and keep her for a few days to see if we liked her.

That was six years go.

We named our girl “Kona,” after the honeymoon locale where we'd spent a week high off of wedding bliss, getting sunburned while snorkeling, drinking coffee on patios, and exploring volcanoes. She quickly adapted to apartment life while we came up with creative ways to help her burn off that puppy energy. I’d lace up my shoes before the sun rose and take her for a three-mile run in the sleepy streets, relishing in the coolest part of the Texas summer. When I broke my ankle several years in, we would take her off leash to huge, open swaths of land and let her look for jackrabbits. We’d shiver under an umbrella as we waited for her to do her business in the rain. Jimmy would hook her leash to his bike and ride around the apartment complex while she trotted beside him, tongue lolling happily out the side of her mouth.

Things have certainly changed over the past six years. We bought a house, which means she has a backyard dominion to preside over from her perch on an Adirondack chair. Our walking route is fairly suburban now, and the acres of wide open space we used to take her to have become apartment complexes and office buildings. And recently, we brought home a brand new, tiny human. While Kona doesn’t seem too bothered or interested in the newest member of our family, I expect they’ll be fast friends when the dropping-Cheerios-off-the-high-chair-tray phase starts.

But despite all the changes, she still loves running at full speed and hunting for lizards in tall grass. She’s still terrified of laundry, the laundry room, and laundry baskets (a fear we still don’t understand). She’ll still do anything for a piece of raw zucchini. She still emits the heaviest, most annoyed sighs when she’s tired and we try to snuggle her.

At the end of the day, even when she countersurfs to get the tupperware container I accidentally left out or repeatedly bops me with that cold wet nose because I got home from work and haven’t presented her with her daily R-A-W-H-I-D-E yet, I say her name and her head turns at that heartbreakingly adorable tilt, and it all melts away. She greets us every morning from the couch with a slow, sleepy tail thump and every afternoon with a whole-body wag as we walk through the door. She lives her life with the mentality that every day is even better than the one before it. And while she’s gotten a little older, a little more sausage-shaped, and a little more gray around the edges, we love her fiercely and cannot imagine our life without her.

And those ears still get me every time.