My hero is my dog Dixie. She has the one quality everyone wants but nobody has - the ability to make friends with everyone she meets.

One day as I was walking her in the riverbed, I came across another walker. He was a man of about 50, with scraggly, grayish-white hair peeking from his turban and a ripped, dirty white robe and pants. My first thought was that he was homeless and to steer clear. Unfortunately, Dixie, my medium cottonball mutt, ran up to his vicious-looking Doberman before I had the chance to change directions. Dixie sniffed the dog’s rear-end and vice versa as is the traditional dog-greeting ritual. All I could think was, How can I get away? Then the unkempt man uttered words that changed me.

“Hello, ma’am,” he said. His smile was colossal, filled with kindness. Meanwhile, our dogs were frolicking around like they’d always known each other. My heart turned to concrete and fell to the bottom of my guilty stomach.

In shock, I tried to pull Dixie away, but she wouldn’t separate from her rambunctious playmate. Trying to pass the time, our conversation continued, and it turned out that, despite my instincts, this man was one of the most highly respected doctors in the area.

Now, I’m not saying that my dog helped me never to judge, as you and I know is impossible. What she did do, though, is show me that I should at least not judge as wrongly and harshly as I had in the past. Because of this, Dixie, and dogs everywhere, are my heroes.