By 2022, my dog-sitting business was going well.
Brandon and Bella had immediately felt comfortable with Gina and Kylie, and they loved being around the other dogs who stayed with us — especially Timber and Thor.
Life was busy. Very busy.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I made a mistake.
It is not particularly easy for me to write this part, because I know some people may judge me for it. Some may even wonder how someone who advocates for dogs today could have allowed this to happen.
But if I want to talk about what my dogs have taught me, I also have to be willing to talk about the moments when I got things wrong.
I had always intended to have Kylie spayed. But I kept postponing the appointment. There was always something happening, always another reason to push the date a little further away.
It was irresponsible.
And Kylie became pregnant.
The father was Brandon.
By the time I realized what had happened, the pregnancy was already well underway.
My first reaction was a very human one:
Don't panic. You can find good homes for the puppies. Maybe sell them, maybe give them to people who will love them. It will be okay.
I genuinely believed that.
Then the puppies were born.
And everything changed.
I was there when they came into this world. I watched them leave Kylie's body. I watched her become their mother.
And I saw something I wasn't prepared for.
Kylie was wonderful with them. She cared for them, protected them and stayed close to them. As the days became weeks, I watched six tiny puppies develop their own personalities. I watched them sleep together, play together and seek one another out.
I watched a little family forming in front of me.
I had already learned something about the bond between two dog siblings through Brandon and Bella.
Now Kylie was teaching me something else.
She was teaching me to pay attention to the mother.
Suddenly, the simple plan I had made in my head — I'll find homes for them — didn't feel simple anymore.
These were no longer six puppies I could imagine handing over one by one.
I had watched their beginning.
I had watched Kylie with them.
I had watched them with each other.
And eventually I looked at this little family and knew:
I couldn't separate them.
So my life changed.
I stopped my dog-sitting business because I needed to take care of my own dogs — twelve of them at that time.
I began working night shifts, including caring for people with disabilities and elderly people living with dementia.
At night, I worked.
During the day, I cared for my dogs.
It wasn't the life I had planned.
But I don't regret it.
Today, I live in the mountains with my dogs, and I advocate for animals — especially dogs.
Sometimes people may look at advocacy and imagine there was one particular day when someone simply decided, I want to help animals.
For me, it wasn't like that.
My dogs brought me here.
Diva and Gina taught me about the extraordinary bond between a human and a dog.
Brandon and Bella taught me about the bond between siblings.
And Mama Kylie and her six babies taught me about motherhood, family and something we don't talk about nearly enough.
The mother matters too.
I want to be careful here.
I am not a scientist, and I cannot tell you that a dog experiences motherhood exactly as a human being does.
I can only tell you what I witnessed.
And what I witnessed changed the questions I ask.
When a mother dog is bred repeatedly and her puppies repeatedly leave her, what does that experience mean for her?
Do we think about it?
Or do we simply tell ourselves, She's an animal. She'll get used to it?
I don't pretend to have every answer.
But after Kylie, I can no longer pretend the question doesn't matter.
And perhaps this is also why I feel so strongly about breeding today.
Around the world, shelters are full. Stray dogs wait on streets. Beautiful animals who already exist are waiting for somebody to choose them.
So when I say stop unnecessary breeding and give shelter and stray dogs a chance, I am not saying it because I believe I am better than the people I am asking to reconsider it.
My own story would make that impossible.
I made a mistake.
I learned from it.
And that experience changed me.
It taught me that advocacy doesn't always begin with knowing better.
Sometimes it begins with getting something wrong, having the courage to look at what happened, and allowing what you learned to change what you do next.
That is part of why Ginabella We Love Dogs exists.
Not because one day I decided I wanted to become an advocate.
But because, little by little, my dogs showed me things I could no longer unsee.
And there is one last detail about Kylie's six babies that has always stayed with me.
They came into this world on my birthday.
The same day I was born, years earlier, six little lives arrived and unknowingly helped change the direction of mine.
I made the mistake.
Kylie gave me the lesson.
And I have carried it with me ever since.
