This Dog Will Change Your Life

This Dog Will Change Your Life appeals to the reader’s emotions to capture the benefits that dogs bring to human lives. While Friedman gestures at other kinds of evidence, he predominantly relies on his personal love of dogs to prove the power of human-canine bonds. Largely omitting scientific data, historical facts, and avoiding a logical appeal, the text appeals primarily to emotion. Throughout the text, Friedman leans on anecdotal accounts to illustrate how dogs have philosophically changed, emotionally rescued, and/or vocationally guided him. These narrative vignettes create room for larger platitudes about dogs’ allegedly innate transformative powers. Friedman argues that “Once we recognize that our dogs inspire our love and empathy, our social instincts and our unselfconscious enjoyment of the world, we are more likely to venture down that path” (xvi-xvii). The introduction describes his childhood connections with family dogs, including Oreo, Maggie, Matilda, and Ruby, establishing a heartwarming tone that permeates the narrative. 

Friedman goes on to argue that in an overarching sense, human—canine bonds can save people from the pressures of life. He notes that while he’s “encountered dogs that help save people from drowning, dogs that find people lost in forests or buried by avalanches, dogs that defend people from bears or mountain lions […] dogs save us in less dramatic yet more profound ways as well” (xvi-xvii).