That guy who takes a bajillion pictures of his dog.

That guy who lies on his belly in the wet grass and mud to take said pictures of said dog.

That guy who, in today’s technologically advanced world, posts photos of his dog on Instagram and Facebook.

That guy who reads an article about somebody else’s dog’s death and knowingly shakes my head “yes” in sympathy and understanding.

That guy.

This realization hit me like a sack of hammers awhile back, after I read a column by my friend Clay Jenkinson. He wrote a wonderful essay about the life and death of his mother’s dog. As only Clay does, he took his readers elegantly through Boz the schnauzer’s life, tenderly describing the bond between dog and owner. The trail was going to lead to sadness (discernible early by the title of the essay, “On the death of mother’s dog, Boz”), but I enjoyed the saunter.

Clay wrote about the innate powers dogs possess, whether or not they know it:

If you have read Jack London or watched a cruel dog owner you know that the fact that dogs forgive us our sins and weaknesses (every time) is little short of a miracle. That they seem genuinely to love us, to greet us effusively every time (our best friends and lovers don’t do that), to cheer us when we are down, to cut the loneliness of a lonely life, to help heal us when we are sick, and to intuit and snarl at our enemies long before we recognize them, is literally astonishing. Boz was all of that and more.

After reading that, and Clay’s next three paragraphs, I found myself putting down my Nook and nodding in approval. It was a moment later I found myself muttering, “Good Lord, I’ve become ‘that guy.’”

It was a realization I first resisted because, left unchecked, becoming “that guy” is the first step toward becoming a hoarder who is later found dead with 156 cats and three dozen dogs in a feces- and urine-ridden home. I’ve since become just fine with being “that guy,” thanks to Rudy.

Rudy is our rescue dog, adopted from the Fargo-Moorhead Humane Society about a year and a half ago. He’s a mix between a pit bull and a yellow Lab. The pit bull part was troublesome because many folks looking to adopt a dog are scared by the breed’s reputation as aggressive fighters. So Rudy went many months living in the pound and the shelter before we took a chance. He was unwanted, a throwaway dog. His real name, whatever it was, wasn’t even Rudy. The great workers at the shelter gave him that name.

Rudy’s background is mostly a mystery, but it didn’t take long to see he was distrustful of men, to the point he cowered and shied away from me if I tried to approach. He was abused by somebody, somehow, at some point. That much is clear.

We’ve also always had the sense Rudy was, as my wife Michelle phrased it, a “street dog,” that for some period in his life he roamed and wandered without a home. Rudy’s always had that unpolished, unrefined, socially clumsy feel about him. He is independent and incredibly stubborn when he wants to be, and has the maddening quality of turning off his ears when he doesn’t want to hear you.

He is the opposite of a registered, blue-blood dog.

Our belief that Rudy was homeless at one point was confirmed at a Humane Society fundraiser. As Rudy and I were walking through the throng of dogs and people, a woman’s voice called out, “Rudy?!” I responded affirmatively for him. “Oh my gosh, I barely recognized him,” she said.

I asked how she knew Rudy.

The woman explained she fosters dogs if the Humane Society shelter is full. “Do you know anything about his background?” she asked. I said we did not.

“I had Rudy right after he was taken from the pound, but before he went into the Humane Society shelter,” she said. “You could see his ribs and many of his bones. There wasn’t much to him. He didn’t have much hair and he had sores all over his body. You could tell he’d been on the street awhile. He was in pretty rough shape, as rough as I’ve seen a dog I’ve fostered.”

Then she smiled. “He looks like he’s doing better now.” Indeed he is, I said.

So, I’ve embraced being that guy. Rudy is a great member of our family. And he had a rough go through his first several years on this planet. I happen to like him. He’s survived things he didn’t deserve and now he’s thriving with my wife and daughter — and maybe even me — spoiling him daily. Rudy is unrefined, independent, stubborn and subservient to no one.

In other words, my kind of guy.