My Kids Have Paws: Why Claiming Your Bully Breed as Family Is a Bold Act of Faith

There's a moment most bully breed owners know — the one where you stop saying "the dog" and start saying "my kid." Maybe it's the night they slept on your bed for the first time, or the way your "velvet hippo" — tough on the outside, absolutely mush on the inside — presses their whole body against you when you're having a bad day. That moment is real, and it's not silly.

Here's the honest note: of the four things we're featuring this month, this hat is the lightest, most fun one — it doesn't carry the same bold-faith weight as Abide, Faithful Guardian, or Faith > Fear on its face. But the identity underneath it does matter, and it's worth naming directly. When you publicly, unapologetically love a bully breed — laughing at them on your couch, calling them your kid without flinching — that's a quiet form of advocacy. It pushes back on a narrative that says these dogs don't deserve that kind of devotion.

The human-animal bond with bully breeds specifically gets talked about a lot in this community — the loyalty, the closeness, the desire to be touching you at all times. Some of that traces back to breeding history claims that get repeated often in advocacy spaces; I'd treat those as commonly-cited talking points worth double-checking rather than settled history before you present them as fact. What's not in question is the day-to-day reality: these dogs are deeply bonded, deeply present, and that bond is worth celebrating.

Psalm 37:4 gives you permission for that: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Delight isn't a solemn word — it's the laugh that comes out when your dog does something ridiculous, the wiggle when you walk in the door. God doesn't just tolerate that joy; this verse invites you into it.

Wear the My Kids Have Paws hat loud, and pay close attention this week: the Abiding Walk Box launches in exactly one week, September 1. This is your loudest push of the month — the waitlist is open now, and spots are limited.