Elias Weiss Friedman — best known as The Dogist — uses dog owners’ unique dog stories to explain how a dog “changes your life” in This Dog Will Change Your Life. While each story differs, Friedman generally describes the “change” in these ways:
Dogs shift our emotional world
Friedman highlights how dogs pull people out of anxiety, isolation, or grief. Their presence forces people into routines, movement, and connection, which changes emotional states. The shift happens because dogs offer unconditional, uncomplicated affection that humans often struggle to access from other people.
Dogs reshape our daily behavior
He describes how living with or even briefly encountering a dog changes the way people move through the world — making them slower, more observant, more playful. The change happens because dogs are mindful creatures, attentive to the present moment, and they pull humans into that same mindset.
Dogs connect people to community
Through his photographic encounters, Friedman emphasizes that dogs serve as social bridges. Strangers talk to one another because of dogs; neighborhoods feel friendlier; people feel part of something larger. This happens because dogs are non-threatening, universally loved, and open up social interactions that would otherwise never occur.
Dogs give people identity and purpose
Many stories revolve around how a dog gives someone a new role — caretaker, protector, adventurer, or even photographer (as in Friedman’s own experience building The Dogist). This change happens because dogs depend on humans in a way that is deeply purpose-giving.