BRUCETON MILLS, W.Va. (WBOY) — West Virginia Governor Jim Justice explained how his famous English Bulldog, Babydog, got her name, and it might be a similar story as your childhood pet.

During an announcement at Coopers Rock State Forest on Tuesday, Justice took a break from talking about good things going on in West Virginia to talk about Babydog.

“Now let me tell you something about this little rascal,” he said while patting Babydog on the head. He continued, “There’s something more than just me walking around with a Bulldog.”

“Now, how she got her name is just this,” he said, and then told the story. On Christmas of 2019, just before the pandemic, Gov. Justice’s son and daughter gifted him and his wife Cathy a 10-week-old Bulldog puppy.

Justice said they just handed to puppy to him and he thought, “Oh my goodness. You know, we’re in the bed every night with two Boston Terriers and now this thing’s gonna grow into a 60-pound brown watermelon. So, she’s gonna get big, and she did.”

But while she was still a little puppy on Christmas, Justice’s 2-year-old grandson would watch her.

“She’s just a little 10-week-old puppy, and he would walk around saying, ‘Where’d that baby dog go?'” Justice said. “And so we named her Babydog.”

While Babydog was a puppy, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and Justice said that as he was traveling throughout the pandemic, she kept him smiling.

“I’d just look at her and she would make me smile, and I could surely see that she made you smile,” Justice said. He continued, “She showed us that everybody oughta be loving everybody.”

Since she was added to the Justice family, Babydog has become a sort of mascot for the state, from being the face of the West Virginia “Do It for Babydog” COVID vaccine sweepstakes, to having a waterfall at Babcock State Park named after her.