As people, we tend to compartmentalize things. Our lives are made up of a series of associations from which we group together memories in the never-ending quest to form a narrative for ourselves; to divine some “meaning of it all.”

Dogs, however, bear no such heavy burden. Their job is to love, and to love unconditionally. In exchange, we give them food and shelter, and we tell our friends with children that our “kid” is just as much a responsibility as theirs is. We put up with gnawed-on car headrests and soiled (so-called) STAINMASTER® carpets and obscenely high veterinarian bills, all because canine love — the kind of love that can only come from a species reliant upon the barter system to survive — is so pure, we have no choice but to uphold our end of the bargain.

June 22, 2002, the day I brought her home from the mountains of Temecula in Southern California. I had gone to the breeder wanting a male yellow lab, but as fate would have it, Leia the Wunderdog chose me. She was the runt of the litter, they said, but she also happened to be the smartest.

I turned 26 on the day Leia came into my life 13 years ago. Looking back on it, I was more infatuated with the “idea” of having a dog than I was cognizant of what making a commitment of such magnitude really meant. It meant that I would no longer be able to just do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I meant that I wasn’t just fending for myself, anymore, but another life, as well. It meant responsibility. It meant an acknowledgement of something called “cost of ownership,” and it meant, on some level, putting the needs of someone or something else ahead of my own — a concept that I have only recently come to fully understand and embrace.

None of this is to say that the third of my life spent with Leia was all about coming of age and life lessons. Her warm personality, her incredible athleticism, and her calendar-worthy good looks managed to win people over from coast to coast — even those who swore they weren’t “dog people,” and especially the ones who ended up admitting, “Great dog, but the owner is kind of a jerk.”

And that’s the thing about dogs: they don’t point out your flaws, they don’t criticize your decisions, and they never judge you. Instead, they sit shotgun when you drive cross-country to move back in with your parents after a failed attempt to “make it” in California. They don’t care that you’ve only got $300 to your name, or that you’re driving 3,000 miles with an expired vehicle registration and insurance. Nope, their only concern is over you stopping every couple of hours or so to toss some frisbee along the interstate as truck drivers whiz by incredulously. Oh, and that you make good on your promise to add them to the list of elite dogs lucky enough to swim in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.