Wednesday Wag: Lindsey Vonn opens up about how her dogs helped her

Lindsey Vonn is opening up about her three rescue pups. And if there were a best dog competition at the 2018 Olympics, they’d definitely win gold.

Athletes dream of the Olympics. But the Olympics can also be a pressured and isolating place. So how does alpine skier Lindsey Vonn deal with it all? Her three adorable dogs Lucy, Leo and Bear.

Vonn has been through a lot, and she’s been very open about her struggles. She went through a divorce and then a breakup. She had to miss the 2014 Sochi Olympics because of a knee injury and needed two surgeries to correct it. And recently, she faced terrible bullying after she announced she wouldn’t meet with president Trump if she won a gold medal in the 2018 Olympics.

And her time in Pyeongchang hasn’t been easy. She wound up in sixth place at the super-G competition, but she did get a bronze medal in the downhill race.

But Vonn told CNN in a new interview that she always has someone to rely on. Through it all, there’s always been Lucy, Leo and Bear. “They don’t talk back; they don’t tell me what to do they just love me,” Vonn told CNN.

“If you don’t have anyone it can be very, very lonely and just empty,” she added. “I always have someone to cuddle with, and someone that’s happy to see me.”

As CNN notes, Vonn’s knee injury sent her into a depression, so she started to rescue dogs. She got Leo, who had been hit by a car and had a bad knee too, just before her second knee surgery in 2014. She joked that the two could rehab together, which is adorable.

Anyone with a pup knows how much a dog can help you. They don’t judge. They’re just there to love you. And Vonn said that her rescue pups definitely helped lift her out of a bad place and gave her something she loved. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that they’re absolutely adorable.

Vonn’s not the only one who loves her dogs. The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Lucy is Vonn’s smallest dog, so she makes a lot of appearances with her. And she’s become something of an international sensation.

Vonn, of course, set up an Instagram account for her dogs called Vonndogs, which currently has a whopping 29.9k followers. Every single picture of those fine puppers is the best.

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So while Vonn’s out there skiing, her dogs have already won gold.