I used to think my family liked my dogs more than they actually liked me. Now, I’m positive it’s true.

My family is a dog family — specifically, a golden retriever family. We currently have two dogs, Arnie and Sabrina, and they outshine me any day and not because of their many trophies.

Both of my dogs are “show dogs,” meaning they compete in dog shows. Both are what the dog community and regulations consider “champions.” They’ve won their fair share of competitions, enough to even be recognized as superb in their breed.

Although I love my dogs more than anything — sorry human family members — when they started competing in dog shows, I found it odd and creepy. I felt bad for some of these dogs, kept on a leash daily and taken around a ring, being judged based on their fur. I thought of them almost as beauty pageants for dogs.

It wasn’t really until I saw how happy it made not only my dogs, but also my family, that my opinion on dog shows started to change. My dogs loved the attention they got from these competitions. My dad loved seeing his beloved dogs so happy and healthy. My mom and sister loved seeing my dad happy and, in return, this made me happy.

In an odd way, these dog shows, no matter how unusual they might seem, brought my family together like nothing had ever before.

It gave us another reason to come together and support one another, even though we were supporting the dog members of the family.

No matter how weird or even creepy my show dogs seemed to me at the beginning, they taught me how to embrace the strange in my life. They taught me not to be embarrassed of anything, along with giving me a way to love my family even more.

Maybe someone it’s a show dog too or a traveling clown group. Whatever the odd part of life is, embrace and learn to love it, because these strange aspects can teach life lessons one never knew before about themselves, and can even bring one closer to the ones one loves.

Plus, maybe they’ll earn a cool trophy and ribbon out of it.