This Dog Will Change Your Life

“It would serve as a social bridge into conversations with new people. It would help him dodge the perils of the modern world […] It would force him to build a structure around mealtimes, playtimes, bedtimes. It would keep him out of his head.”

Friedman uses his friend Angus’s journey towards dog ownership as an example of how dogs can transform, rescue, and heal the individual. Friedman was convinced that adopting a dog might help Angus to overcome his social anxiety and heal from his mental health concerns. He lists the positive influences a dog can have on a person in this passage, underscoring Self-Discovery Through Animal Companionship.

“I don’t want this book to be academic either. It’s a celebration of the joy that dogs bring into our lives, and more specifically of the way that they can help us have a better approach to our identity, our relationships, and our purpose. It’s meant to attain and then maintain a kind of emotional altitude, so I don’t want it to feel too weighty.”

Friedman lays out his mission for This Dog Will Change Your Life in the opening chapter of the text. He identifies the tone and mood of his project, setting a precedent for the pages to come. His heartfelt tone affects a comforting, welcoming mood that echoes the tone of The Dogist. Further, this passage clarifies Friedman’s general omission of scientific facts or data to back up his arguments—he wants to avoid academia and prioritize fun.

“The dog encyclopedia consumed me. To me, it was a combination of the Bible (I had reverence for the subject) and a shopping catalog […] I liked the beauty of each individual breed and the differences between breeds, which extended not only to looks but to personalities.”

Friedman invites the reader into episodes from his childhood to convey his lifelong love of dogs. Even as a young boy, Friedman was invested in learning about dogs. The image of him reading the dog encyclopedia like the Bible or a shopping catalog captures his simultaneous respect for dogs and interest in having dogs in his life.

“More recently, I talked to him about how Gertie has changed him. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘In many ways. She has made me feel okay about being home more in the evening. I have to go home first to take care of her before I go out and do something. It’s like a speed brake on life.’”

Friedman shares his friend Jeff’s relationship with his dog Gertrude (Gertie) to reiterate the Transformative Power of Human-Canine Bonds. Although Friedman worried that Gertrude would be too much responsibility for Jeff, the care she required helped Jeff to reinvent his life. By including Jeff’s reflections on the page—instead of paraphrasing or summarizing his experience—Friedman allows Jeff to explain his transformative experience with his dog in his own words.

“But dogs also deserve to be treated like family. Dogs can change our lives, which is awesome, and they deserve the fundamental respect and kindness we extend to kin. Failure to provide that reflects human flaws—selfishness, shortsightedness, ignorance about options. We should work hard to do our best by our dogs.”

Friedman pairs colloquial language with an assertive tone to spread a message of mutual care between dogs and their owners. He describes human—canine relationships as “awesome”—a familiar adjective which conveys Friedman’s authentic excitement about dogs. However, he also asserts that dogs should be “treated like family”—a claim that implies that if dogs are treated otherwise, their human owners aren’t giving them the respect they deserve.

“My creative juices were waning and I realized it was entirely because I had lost access to dogs. I needed to do something about it other than sit like an idiot with my idiot friend (a term of endearment in our relationship) in the cold and suffer through a series of gray day after gray day after gray day. One day, I broke. I needed access to a dog, and the path was clear: it was time to foster a rescue dog.”

Friedman incorporates his story with his dog Elsa into his overarching canine-inspired explorations to humanize himself and authenticate his arguments. He notes that his frustrations were inspired by his lack of animal companionship. Before Elsa, his life was defined by “cold,” “suffering,” and “grayness”—diction that evokes despair and sadness. Fostering Elsa set him on a path to joy, love, and happiness, which Friedman implies is possible for all new dog owners.

“That was a watershed moment, too, in recognizing that the popularity of my platform had created a different kind of responsibility for me. Understanding how I affect the world I am documenting is a complex issue in some ways.”

Friedman’s reflections on his work with The Dogist convey his heartfelt investment in his work. Although The Dogist page is meant to be fun and to facilitate a joyful community, this passage evidences Friedman’s recognition of the seriousness of this responsibility. He has a far-reaching platform, which requires his social consciousness and cultural awareness.

“When you bring an adult dog into your life, it changes the story, or rather it changes the fact that it is just your story. More specifically, you are entering a story that is already in progress. When you pick up a young puppy from a breeder, you not only get the cutest version […] but you get a version that begins, give or take, with you.”

Friedman reflects on the reciprocity required in human—canine relationships. Just as people have complicated and often traumatic pasts, Friedman argues that dogs do, too. Dog owners must therefore create room for their dogs’ previous lives to facilitate healthy and mutual bonds. In this passage, he uses the second-person point of view, incorporating his reader into his discussion and encouraging her to reflect on her own relationship with her animal companions.

“What was illuminated, in post after post, was that dogs need us just as much as we need them. And I knew that the dogs would approve of this shift. If they were social media consultants and I asked them if their humans should be in their Dogist posts with them, I know exactly what they would say: ‘How could they not?’”

Friedman uses The Dogist as a throughway into his reflections on the Transformative Power of Human-Canine Bonds. Since its inception in 2013, Friedman’s social media page has granted him insight into these interspecies relationships. The more he’s learned about dogs and their owners, the more he’s had to adapt his page to these lessons. Realizing that owners are as important to dogs as dogs are to their owners, for example, has inspired him to shift his approach to his Dogist photographs. This passage exhibits Friedman’s introspective, caring, and conscious nature.

“I personally believe they’re capable of many of the same emotions we possess: happiness, jealousy, anger, confusion, restlessness. Some experts may disagree with some of those, but I know many of you are nodding in agreement […] But what dogs are not—what they cannot be—is vain the way that people can be vain, or spiteful the way that people can be spiteful, or disingenuous, or putting on a front to impress a colleague, or engaging in flattery.”

Friedman argues that dogs have complex emotional lives that their human owners can learn from. Although there are overlaps between dog emotions and human emotions—"happiness, jealousy, anger, confusion, restlessness”—humans are more prone to vanity, spite, and flattery. Friedman suggests that if humans attune themselves to their dogs’ authenticity and pure-hearted natures, they might acquire these traits, too.

“My shyness made me want to go right past them to avert my gaze, not from rudeness but from a general awkwardness. But Ruby didn’t agree. […] Ruby’s sociability, which generally consisted of trotting up to the other dogs and sniffing their butts, maybe a bark or two, created a perfect opportunity for the humans to engage in some low-key small talk.”

Friedman identifies his relationship with his childhood dog, Ruby, as essential to his personal development. This is one personal anecdote that conveys Self-Discovery Through Animal Companionship. Whereas Friedman was shy and withholding, Ruby was energetic, outgoing, and social. Friedman learned to follow Ruby’s lead, which in turn helped him overcome social barriers and take risks. This is an example of how dogs can facilitate a person’s self-discovery journey and lead her to a more realized identity.

“A dog can bring people into contact. It can bring people into conversation. But a dog can also bring people together. I mean together together: into sustained romantic relationships.”

Friedman muses on the possibility of Building Community Around a Shared Love of Dogs in a variety of contexts. In this passage, Friedman argues that dogs can foster deep, romantic love. This assertion launches his explorations of dog-based romances and the transformative effects of fur babies. While dogs can bring people together in more macro contexts like social media, Friedman believes they can strengthen human bonds in more micro contexts like home and family, too.

“These are all questions that we’ll be asking each other over and over again as they relate to children, and Elsa gives us a chance to hash them out. Those kinds of negotiations, and the discussions around them, are a daily occurrence for us now. […] It’s just our life and how we are living it, as predictable and as necessary as a morning or an evening walk.”

Friedman identifies his dog Elsa as a life-changing figure in his life. Adopting Elsa not only helped Friedman rediscover his love of dogs and his verve for life, but effectively renewed his relationship with his partner, Sam. Elsa is also an example of a fur baby—or a canine pet who tightens a couple’s bond and teaches them the responsibilities required for human parenting.

“Of all the dogs I have met, this is the sentiment that keeps returning to me most deeply, the feeling that I am helping to create a singular and heartwarming keepsake for people that they can have forever, even after their dog passes.”

Friedman emphasizes that his work with The Dogist has given him a lifelong sense of meaning and purpose. This is another example of Self-Discovery Through Animal Companionship. Indeed, Friedman’s dogs led him to create The Dogist and helped him celebrate others’ connections with dogs, honoring interspecies love and joy.

“They experience their existence when they are here, for themselves and for us. They live their lives fully in the moment. […] Extending an individual dog’s life so that an owner can have more time with it disrupts part of the beauty of dog ownership: to have, to hold, to love, to lose, to mourn, to reminisce.”

Friedman argues that humans should honor the length of a dog’s life and learn from the lighthearted way that they live. He acknowledges that it’s always hard to say goodbye to a dog when they die, but holds that prolonging a dog’s life to stave off one’s grief is selfish and unethical. Instead, he argues that humans should merely appreciate their canine companions during the time they’ve been given. In the last line, Friedman invokes the verbiage and cadence of wedding vows to convey the sacred nature of human-canine relationships, no matter how brief they may be.

“‘Being in Puppies Behind Bars,’ he said, ‘you have to open your heart back up. There’s no way you can successfully raise one of these puppies without allowing yourself to love them, and to receive that love.’”

Friedman quotes one of the incarcerated individuals from Puppies Behind Bars (PBB) to reiterate the Transformative Power of Human-Canine Bonds. The men are not only helping to train these service dogs through the PBB programming, but the dogs are helping the men to open their hearts and to love again. This symbiotic relationship underscores the importance of animal companionship.

“Over the years, I have built a large online community. I post my pictures and videos on various social media platforms, whether Instagram or TikTok or Facebook or Twitter, and what binds them all together is the people who come to see them.”

Friedman’s work with The Dogist captures the possibilities of Building Community Around a Shared Love of Dogs. The Dogist is a place where people can come together and delight over “pictures and videos” that honor their shared appreciation for their pets. Dogs bring people together and let them overcome their differences.

“My family often thinks of Keeping Finn as a gift from me to my brother, but really it was a gift from dogs to me that I regifted to my brother. It was the gift of knowing that you could pursue a fulfilling career centered on something you loved. […] Above all, it was the gift of purpose.”

Friedman identifies his brother Henry’s relationship with Finn and Keeping Finn as another example of Self-Discovery Through Animal Companionship. Dogs taught Friedman how to love and enjoy life, and Friedman shared this lesson with his brother in his time of need. Friedman identifies this exchange as a “gift,” which suggests that dogs have given him and his brother a mysterious yet meaningful way to understand themselves.

“The night after he started working with his dog, he slept six hours straight. ‘I’ve had people ask me, how quickly can you see the positive effects of your program?’ Yount told me. ‘The answer is: immediately.’”

Friedman quotes a veteran’s experience with Warrior Canine Connection (WCC) to reiterate dogs’ ability to rescue, redeem, and heal people. By quoting instead of paraphrasing the vet, Friedman is letting his subject tell his story in his own words. Doing so is Friedman’s way of balancing his authorial opinions and using a subject’s voice to authenticate his overarching arguments about dogs.

“When the coast was clear, Arby started forward again, and so did I. We only went about a hundred feet in total, but it felt like a lifetime. And it was: someone else’s lifetime, and a chance for me to glimpse into it and see how this could restore confidence and independence.”

Friedman’s experience walking with a seeing-eye dog taught him empathy. Friedman was working with The Seeing Eye to better understand their work to connect service dogs with people who are blind. During the visit, he had the seeing-eye dog Arby lead him down a busy street. The experience conveyed the importance of The Seeing Eye’s work and reiterated to Friedman how dogs’ special skills can transform people’s lives.

“Dogs can inspire us by giving us purpose, but they can also inspire us when we watch them behave purposefully. Some of us are meant to help others in a one-on-one environment. Some of us are meant to inspire groups. Others are meant to venture into the unknown, certain that we will discover what we’re meant to find there. The range of dog purposes illuminates the range of human purposes, in part because dog purpose has been defined from the start through coevolution.”

Friedman argues that dogs can change people because they model important skills and behaviors to humans. If a person is feeling lost, confused, or stuck, Friedman believes they can study a dog’s adventurous, purposeful, or determined nature to gain insight into their own strengths. This is another example of Self-Discovery Through Animal Companionship.

“Elsa, in fact, represents the majority of dogs, the so-called everyday dogs, whose purpose isn’t herding sheep, saving someone from drowning, or stopping a bad guy with a gun, but rather, providing affection.”

Friedman uses his relationship with his dog Elsa to reiterate the Transformative Power of Human-Canine Bonds. While Elsa might seem “everyday” or ordinary, Friedman argues that her primary purpose of loving him and Sam is the most sacred purpose any creature can have. This passage reiterates Friedman’s overarching message of love and joy.

“Dogs are emotional savants. If they sense sadness, or discontent, or end-of-a-long-day fatigue, they don’t ask where you’ve been or why you’re bothered. They don’t chide you or give you alternative theories to fuel your work drama. They get up next to you, give you a paw, and bring your mind back to the present with simple love and joy.”

In preparation for the text’s conclusion, Friedman reflects on all the marvelous emotional lessons humans can learn from dogs. In this passage, he is comparing a dog’s response to its owner’s troubles to another human’s response to human troubles. Whereas humans are prone to “chide,” fuel drama, or ask probing questions, dogs are better able to share space and time with you. Their innocence and sincerity, Friedman argues, are essential to human health and happiness.