The Dogist: Dogs Make Us Better People
Instagram photo-documentarian Elias Weiss Friedman, better known as The Dogist, reflects on how dogs truly make our lives—and us as people—better
I owe my life to a dog. When I was two years old, my grandmother was babysitting me, and she decided we should go for a walk: her, me, and her six-year-old black Lab, Oreo. When we got outside, my grandmother realized she had forgotten her jacket, and she ducked back into the house. By the time she came outside again, I was gone. So was Oreo. My grandmother called my name, called Oreo’s name, and looked everywhere. There was no trace of us.
She ran back inside to call my parents, who immediately called the police. Everyone was losing their minds, which were suddenly filled with the most terrifying visions: a fall into a well, a kidnapping, or worse. The police started to look for me, but they couldn’t find me either.
About twenty minutes later, a landscaper in the neighbourhood saw a black Lab walking around the road. Next to the dog, closer to the curb, was a toddler: me. Whenever I tried to wander off the sidewalk into the street, Oreo herded me back like a hairy guardrail on four legs.
Photos by The Dogist – Elias Weiss Friedman
There was no footage taken of this event, and my grandmother, understandably, clams up when the story is brought up, so I only have the story my parents often retell as proof that it happened. That, and the manufactured memory I’ve created over the years each time the story is retold. But I have a ton of proof that this kind of thing happens all the time. Go online and search around for dogs rescuing children. There’s the one of a German Shepherd saving a kid from being attacked by another dog; a Boston Terrier in Connecticut that alerted parents when a toddler began turning blue; a Border Collie in Texas that somehow knew that a teenager in the family was having a stroke. One of my favourites is one of the simplest: a Bernese Mountain Dog sitting on the floor near a crawling baby, a flight of stairs on the other side of the dog. The Berner knows the stairs are a hazard and that the baby is too young to know any better. As the baby starts to wander near the staircase, the dog repositions himself to block the baby from getting anywhere near it. The whole video is under a minute, but it’s hard to watch without tearing up a little bit.
Photos by The Dogist – Elias Weiss Friedman
Those moments should fill us with wonder. They should remind us of the power of technology to connect, not just to divide.
Those moments should fill us with wonder. They should remind us of the power of technology to connect, not just to divide. But they should do more than that. They should encourage us to think more about dogs and the role they have in our lives. They should answer any questions we might have about animal intelligence or the bonds between dogs and humans. They should help us to understand why an otherwise perfectly sane person would exit the ordinary work world and devote himself to photographing dogs as they walk along city streets—and not only photograph them but ask about the way that they affect the lives of their owners, and then write a book about that amazing process.
Photos by The Dogist – Elias Weiss Friedman
That otherwise sane person would go out into the world, not just the city streets around him but to Puerto Rico, to China, to a prison in upstate New York, on a cross-country drive with his recently unemployed brother, all in the service of understanding the ways that dogs make the lives of their people better in every way.
I am that otherwise perfectly sane person.
*Elias Weiss Friedman’s new book, This Dog Will Change Your Life, is out June 3rd, 2025. It was born from the simple realization that came from decades of studying dogs and their people: Dogs make people’s lives better by making people better.
This article originally appeared in the award-winning Modern Dog magazine. Subscribe today!
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