“A human life improved by a dog isn’t just a theoretical concept. It’s a real life event that happens a million times a day, all over the world.”
That’s a quote from the introduction to Elias Weiss Friedman’s book This Dog Will Change Your Life. He’s known all over the world as The Dogist. He strolls the streets of New York City looking for dogs to photograph and always asks their owners how the dog has changed their lives. You can see these encounters on some of the social media platforms.
Friedman knows a lot about dog breeds and has photographed more than fifty thousand dogs, some of them famous. For instance, he photographed President Biden and his German Shepherd Commander.
His book is divided into three sections: Our Identity, Our Relationships, Our Purpose and has two indices one of them a Dog Index listing the names of all the dogs he talks about in the book.
The book jacket says “Over his decades of studying dogs and their people, Elias has arrived at a deceptively simple realization: Dogs make people’s lives better by making people better. Dogs improve us. They save us. They give our lives greater meaning and fulfillment. They help us understand our own identities, deepen our relationships, and remind us of patience, purpose, and commitment.”
I know a lot of that is true of me since I got Winnie, an eight-pound ball of fur Havapoo. She is funny, empathetic and well, frustrating as only puppies can be.
If you too have fallen under the spell of a dog, then you must read This Dog Will Change Your Life by Elias Friedman and Ben Greenman.
