The Unique Love Between Humans and Dogs | Elias Weiss Friedman | TED

24,424 views ・ 2025-02-14

TED


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00:04
Cloe Shasha Brooks: Elias, thank you for joining us.
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Elias Weiss Friedman: It's my honor to be here.
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CSB: You have a very popular platform, The Dogist.
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On Instagram alone, you have 7.6 million followers,
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so you bring a lot of joy to a lot of people around the world.
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And in your photographing of dogs, you also tell stories in the caption.
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So I’ve noticed a theme throughout these captions
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about the deep love people have for their dogs,
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sometimes in ways that seem to exceed the love they might even have for people.
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Can you tell us about the uniqueness
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of the relationship between dogs and people that you've noticed?
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EWF: Yeah. I've photographed something like 50,000 dogs
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in the last 11 years, all around the world, mostly in New York.
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But one of the sentiments and stories I hear most often is this idea of, like,
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unconditional love.
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And the common thing is, like, "I've had a hard day.
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I'm stressed out, someone cut me off in traffic.
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And I come home,
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and my dog is looking at me like this, and it all washes away."
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And so that's, like, a really powerful thing.
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And dogs are so, you know, generous with their love.
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And they're also really generous with their eye contact.
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You know, that's something I try and capture, this directness.
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But like you're saying,
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it's a more simple relationship than we have with people.
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You know, if I come home, Elsa is there to greet me,
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and she wants a belly rub.
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And, you know, Sam, my fiancé, is also there to greet me.
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And generally, she goes, "Hey, honey."
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But maybe she's had a day or, you know, I left the towel on the bed again.
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You know, it's not as simple as it is with the dog,
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who just looks at you like this.
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That's my dog, Elsa.
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She's a rescue from Texas.
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She wishes she could have been here.
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CSB: So in your travels,
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you've photographed dogs all over the world.
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And I've noticed, in your writing,
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that you note the differences in cultures about how people relate to dogs,
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based on where you are.
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So will you tell us about some of your most favorite cultures,
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around dogs?
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EWF: I think there's a universal thing around dogs.
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That's one of the great things about my job, is I can travel anywhere.
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You know, just yesterday, I was walking around Atlanta,
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meeting people and their dogs.
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But there's some trends, like in LA, the dogs are in people's cars with them,
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so they spend even more time with their dogs.
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You know, I've traveled around the world.
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Like, that last image was in the UK, a dog called Tuppence, at a pub.
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And I just thought that was, like, a quintessential thing
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that you don't see quite as often in the States,
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hopefully more often.
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The next picture, I think, was taken in Maine,
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or this is in Pisa,
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but there's this universal thing, where I can travel anywhere,
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I could go to Antarctica and find a dog,
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and relate to someone, and connect with someone.
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You know, if I'm photographing people,
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they may not be as interested, because, like, "What's this about?"
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But as soon as I start talking about their dog,
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they're like, "How do you want him?
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Let me get the eye boogers out."
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This was kind of a funny one.
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I was in Croatia, and they often have these, like, town dogs,
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that are just roaming around the entire time,
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while you're, you know, out having dinner.
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And I asked a local, like, "What's this dog?"
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He’s like, “That’s Žuti,” which means “yellow” in Croatian.
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I was like trying to get a picture of Žuti, and I captured him.
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You know, maybe he lives in one place, but he wanders around.
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The whole town is his. Yes.
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And this was in Switzerland, obviously,
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at the Saint Bernard Museum.
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That was a fun trip.
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And one of the things I gleaned from that trip
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was, like, in places in Europe, in Switzerland,
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they take dogs very seriously.
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Like, to become a breeder,
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you need to, like, go to a dog training class or something.
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And I appreciate that.
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Sort of, like, they're part of our family.
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Whereas I think, in the United States,
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sometimes, we feel like there's no rules about breeding,
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and that's why sometimes, there's overpopulation.
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CSB: Right. EWF: Yeah.
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CSB: Let's talk about service dogs for a moment.
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So anytime I go to the airport and I see a service dog,
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I cry.
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And in a good way,
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because I just think it's so amazing that they can do work for us
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in such a crazy environment.
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But they have so many other functions, they do so much for people,
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and there's so much research about post-traumatic stress disorder
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and other mental health conditions.
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I imagine you've met a lot of folks
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who have really benefited from service dogs,
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so we'd love to hear some stories.
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EWF: There's all types of service dogs, like the therapy dogs at the airport,
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guide dogs that guide visually impaired people.
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But I've done this series over the years
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with this organization called America's VetDogs,
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and they raise and train lab mixes for veterans,
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and they often have PTSD.
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This is a series I did with this woman named Sharon and her dog Eddie,
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and it sort of started as this typical, you know,
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I’m meeting this woman at her house, and we’re going to chat.
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And I get there and, you know,
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she's demonstrating the different things Eddie can do.
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And he'll do nightmare interruption.
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If she's having a nightmare,
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he'll nudge her awake or pick up her keys or turn the lights on.
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And that's all, like, typical. And she was normal.
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And she was an RN, she was a nurse in the Army.
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And so she has seen people at their worst, you know,
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and it's hard to come back and just forget that or reintegrate.
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But it wasn't until later in the day
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that I went to the headquarters of America's VetDogs
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and spoke with the president,
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and she was like, "I heard you met Sharon." And I was like, "Yeah, I did."
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And she was like, "You know, when she came to us,
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she was nonverbal and shaking."
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Sorry, chokes me up, sometimes, talking about this.
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But, you know, Eddie, her dog, made her the way she is now,
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and it's so transformative and powerful.
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She was on, I'm sure, all types of drugs,
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and it didn't work as well.
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And she came across as someone who was articulate
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and thoughtful with her dog,
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and her dog empowers her that way.
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Later in the day, I met Nathan.
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Same program, America's VetDogs.
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He was a retired veteran from the Air Force.
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He was in charge of, as he called, "nukes," the nuclear division.
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And as you can imagine, like, in that role, you have to be,
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like, perfect all the time.
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If they ask you "Are you good?"
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"Yes, sir, I am good," even if you're not good.
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He was describing it as he became robotic,
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and it dehumanized him.
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And when he retired, it's like, how do you just reintegrate?
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And it was really hard for him.
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He was completely asocial
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and wouldn't leave the house,
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and America's VetDogs offered him this dog and this training program.
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And, I'm sure, you know, there are multiple factors.
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But now, he's a public speaker, like, the opposite of what he was before.
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And it's like, how do you pinpoint --
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it's, like, hard to quantify what the power of a dog is,
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but it's real.
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CSB: Yeah.
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EWF: And, you know, it's amazing.
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So this is my buddy Angus, and, you know, he's not a veteran.
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He's not a visually impaired person,
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he's not someone who automatically, you would think,
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qualifies for a service dog,
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but he's someone who, like,
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has serious trouble with anxiety and depression
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he’s had for a long time.
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He’s on all types of drugs, which have all types of side effects.
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And he, you know, came to me,
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he's like, "What would you think if I had a dog?"
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And I think that, you know, that'd be a great idea.
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And we sort of left it at that.
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And then, I get a call. He's like, "I'm at the airport.
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I'm flying to Wyoming to meet a potential service dog for myself."
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You know, he found some breeder that specializes in it.
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And, you know, a month later, this dog arrives.
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And this is, like, the first moment that they'd met.
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And, like, there's no person you just meet and stare at them
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so deeply in their eyes --
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(Laughter)
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... and have this, like, instantly powerful effect.
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And you know, he loves this dog, and he’s never alone anymore.
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And you know, he's single, and he goes on dates,
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and sometimes, the dates don't work.
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And he would have this, like, fear and this spiral
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of going home to nothing and not being OK and feeling rejected.
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And he was telling me, like, now, with Opal,
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he doesn't have that fear anymore.
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It's like, "If it doesn't work out, you know, I'm good.
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Opal is going to be there waiting for me, and she's probably hungry.
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And I'll take her for a walk."
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Like, it's the opposite of this spiral.
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CSB: It's beautiful. EWF: Yeah.
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EWF: And this is back at the VetDogs headquarters.
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This is Maggie, who's a facility service dog.
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So instead of having one handler, she helps with lots of people,
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like in a hospital or something.
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And I was just having, like, a regular Tuesday,
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in whatever mood I was,
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and taking pictures of Maggie, learning about her.
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I did, like, a nightmare interruption.
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And she said, "Do you want Maggie to give you a hug?
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She's a big hugger."
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And I said, "OK, yeah, sure."
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And I get down on my knee,
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and she comes up and just embraces me in this really, like, trained way.
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It's not like a dog jumping up on you.
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But instantly, I felt like my emotions,
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like, my day was completely different.
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It was, like, this powerful force of happiness,
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and I didn't realize that I needed it, before.
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But Maggie made me realize that I did need it.
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CSB: That you were not in the best mood, perhaps.
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EWF: You know, like, whatever mood you're in,
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they're going to enhance it, you know?
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CSB: It's awesome.
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So you grew up with a lot of dogs,
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and you started The Dogist --
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Yeah, there's baby Elias. So cute.
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And you started The Dogist in 2013,
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and you didn't have a dog then, because you were like,
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"I need to travel and take these photos."
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And so when you finally did get a dog, recently, last few years, right?
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How has that changed your perspective on your work?
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EWF: Yeah. I mean, it was sort of like my little secret.
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Like, "The Dogist doesn't have a dog."
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(Laughter)
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And I sort of decided that I needed to travel and meet other people's dogs.
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I had dogstalgia.
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You know, I'm single, I'm not ready for a dog.
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But then during the pandemic, I decided to foster, and I met Elsa.
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She came up from Texas, and she was amazing.
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Like, she campaigned for my heart, and she won.
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(Laughs)
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And I was like, "Well, you know, it's time for me to grow up a bit."
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And, you know, I fell in love with her.
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You know, a lot of people say, like, they open another chamber of your heart.
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And she did, and she, you know, deepened my appreciation
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for other people's relationships with their dogs.
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You know, it's like, it's hard to know, unless you have your own dog,
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like, what that feels like.
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You know, when I got Elsa, my fiancé and I got engaged.
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CSB: Congratulations.
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EWF: You know, it was just sort of, like, a catalyst for love, you know?
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CSB: That's awesome.
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Well, may we all feel the kind of love that Elias feels with Elsa.
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Thank you so much for joining us, Elias.
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EWF: Thank you.
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(Cheers and applause)
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