I find there’s a lot of strong views regarding Valentine’s Day. People seem to love it or it makes them completely gag. I like to pretend the day doesn’t matter to me, but in reality I’m a hopeless romantic and fully enjoy all the cutesy stuff that surrounds Cupid’s favorite holiday — even if I’m not actually partaking in it.
So in light of Valentine’s Day coming up, let’s talk about dating and dogs.
I’m single this year. I’ve essentially been single for many years, even though I’ve only been officially divorced for about two months; I was separated for more than a year and basically alone for several years leading up to the separation.
So needless to say, I am very rusty when it comes 
to dating. Add a pandemic, and how the heck am I supposed to meet anyone?
Never mind someone who gets it when it comes to my passion for dogs.
I’ve been browsing some online dating apps for awhile, but what I miss is the opportunity to actually get out and meet people. Face to face. Perhaps at a dog park so I can see whether my potential person really likes dogs, or just said so on their profile — because let’s face it, almost everyone says they like dogs on their dating profiles. They even make sure to include dogs in at least one picture … but not everyone is truly the dog lover they claim to be.
My ex-husband, God bless him (for real, not in the Southern, Bless his Heart, way), had me believing prior to our marriage that he loved animals. As time went on, it became obvious that we had vastly different ideas of what that meant. While he basically tolerated them, I couldn’t imagine life without pets, particularly dogs, in it.
Perhaps I’m a bit obsessed. I’m okay with that.
So back to these online dating apps. A love for dogs is a must for me. Not only must my person enjoy dogs, they should be a tad obsessed with them and expect them in our lives. They’ll appreciate every single thing about dogs and eagerly look at pictures of all of my past and present clients, friends’ dogs, family’s dogs, and listen to my dog stories. 
And I’m going to want to see pictures and hear stories from them. Dogs will be on the couch with us when we’re watching a movie.
What does this have to do with online dating? Last night I was mindlessly scrolling social media and found a new (at least to me) dating app called dig. It calls itself the dog person’s dating app.
Of course I signed right up at 1:00 a.m. And anybody who knows me well, knows this is waaaaay past my bedtime. But some nights you just can’t sleep, so why not scroll through cute pet pictures and videos?
I haven’t finished setting up my profile yet — after all, it was 1:00 in the morning. I haven’t even looked much into this app as of writing this post. It might be a dud. It might be 
wonderful. But I absolutely love the idea of weeding out the faux dog-lovers right away. The ones who just don’t get it.
And I’ll keep you updated on whether it turns out to be a worthwhile dating app for us true dog lovers.
Of course other things are important to me, but if someone says no dogs on the couch — that’s a deal breaker.
P.S. – Happy Valentine’s Day and give your dog a kiss on the snout from me!
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