With kids, you aren’t supposed to have favorites. I’m sure parents do, but they can’t talk about it. You probably admit it to yourself, you might tell your spouse, but you never tell your kids and you certainly don’t write about it on the internet.

But I have dogs, so things are different.

When we just had Ajax, I thought he was the perfect dog and no other dog could ever be as lovable. He was calm, friendly, well behaved and had quite unique markings for a greyhound. He was a successful racer so I could brag about him, but he was low energy so there was no headache about dealing with a hyper dog. Any other dog would surely have something that wasn’t quite right, so I would always love Ajax the most – or would I?

Then we got Tiki and she was a racing school dropout which meant she was very young and never competed. She was a female when we were hoping to get another male. She has the most common markings for a greyhound (red brindle) and was nothing unique. She was much more rambunctious, not as affectionate and was very shy and reserved around new people. This dog was nothing like Ajax – how could I possibly love her as much?

For the first few months, she was difficult. She learned the stairs very slowly. She never wanted to eat – there was always something more interesting than food. And for a dog that had no room to lose weight, this was scary. She wanted to put her nose on everything, started barking at every dog she saw (although in a friendly manner, it scared all the other dogs), and was generally much more work.

But lately – about 7 months after we picked her up from the greyhound store – she’s really started to grow on me. I love her face: petite, bright-eyed and beautiful. She’s very graceful and slender and now at the perfect weight. She’s overcome the stairs and is now even better than Ajax at them (she can actually change directions in the middle of the stairs!). Her playfulness is now an asset. She makes me laugh every day as she gets a running start to pounce on her toy of choice (as of now this is a small bird) and scoots along the wood floor. She has a really cute ritual of taking every toy out of her toy box one by one, playing with it for 30 seconds, and going for the next one until the box is empty. Even if I start to put them back, she’ll continue in perpetuity. She even has an adorable trick we like to call “dance” where she’ll prance around in a circle on command.

So could this dog actually be as good (or even better) than the perfect Ajax? It remains to be seen. But she’s certainly gaining ground and might almost be even with the dog nobody could beat. At least in my mind. Shane might have different ideas.