Q&A - How Do Dogs Help Us Make Friends?

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About The Episode

For this Q&A minisode, John Bartlett answers about how dogs help us make friends. They connect us to people we wouldn’t otherwise meet, are great icebreakers, and even turn into deeply personal connections (especially in places like the dog park).

Episode Transcript

There’s a scene I often see when walking through the neighborhoods in New York: People talking to each other on the street while their dogs play with each other. Today we will explore why dogs are such great connectors and help us make friends.

Dogs are literally born friendly, meaning it's imprinted in their genes over thousands of years of domestication. Dogs get us out for walks and are great initiators of interaction, so they give us an ice breaker topic with strangers.  

Welcome to the Dog Save the People, a podcast about how dogs make our lives better. I’m your host, John Bartlett. This episode continues our Question & Answer series, where we take listener questions. My answers are based on my own personal experience and research, as well as our previous guest experts. If you have a question you’d like answered on the show, reach out to us at dogsavethepeople.com, where you can email us directly or connect to us on social media.

In today’s mini-episode, we’re looking at the quesrtion: How do our dogs get us out into the world and help us make new friends? As humans, we typically ignore each other when we’re out in the world. We see each other, we may even acknowledge each other, but we don’t really interact beyond that. Dogs aren’t like that at all. In fact, dogs are have been bred over time with an emphasis on sociability traits that helped them get access to human scraps. And this may have evolved into changes to dogs’ DNA, so dogs are born ready for social interaction. 

In a study about reactions to people who are out with their dogs, researchers found that strangers gave more smiles and friendly glances to people with dogs, and were more likely to approach them and have a conversation. Another study showed that dog owners are five times more likely to know people in their community than other pet owners. Dogs make it easy for us to talk to strangers and perfect ice breakers. Asking about or commenting on someone’s dog is a safe way to start a conversation. And as dog owners, we like to talk about our dogs!

Cesar Fernandez-Chavez episode snippet
Before having Louboutina, I rarely knew any of my neighbors, but after - I knew everyone and started making friends in my building. And a couple of months after, I knew everyone on the block. It’s just amazing how they bring people together. The mic that they have.

Like most relationships, friendships grow. Two people may start talking because they have something in common, like dogs. But over time, as they get to know each other better, the conversations change and become more personal.

Anna Lai episode snippet
The one thing that makes New York very lonely is when it’s the holidays. We don’t have many family members here in New York and once we got Peggy, we made friends with other - sort of - lonely New Yorkers, you could say, who have dogs. And we actually spend Christmas together and we have our dog-loving Christmas every year. We’re friends, we’re going to be lifelong friends. I just can’t believe she’s done this for us. 

There’s something super unique about dog friends akin to the phenomenon of telling your deepest secrets to strangers on a plane - it can be comforting to share very personal experiences with someone you know from the dog park who has no expectations from you in daily life. There is a deeply honest and mutual conversation that may only happen with dog friends.

Rebecca Ascher-Walsh episode snippet
Now I have this lovely friendship with somebody thanks to Jo and what’s interesting about it is that I spend an hour with her every morning. We have absolutely nothing else in common, which means we can be completely honest with each other without even thinking about it. There are these intimate connections that you make without having to bridge, “How do you know this person or that this person? What do you do?” You go right to the dogs. Dogs are allowed off-leash before 9 (am), so you find your people - find your dog friends - and you have this walk. You have this very intimate life with these people where you notice if somebody isn’t there for a week. Or you know how their dogs are doing. This morning I had to get a referral for a doctor for another friend and I asked her. I didn’t even hesitate because, of course, she would have that. And I just love that getting to the heart of things really quickly and then by 9 o’clock, then we go into our lives that have a lot of nonsense attached to them or have a lot of confusion and distractions. But this is.. you begin your morning like a walking meditation.

There is also something about meeting friends through dogs that is very democratic - you connect with people that you might not normally do so in your regular life because your dog literally leads by the leash to meet new people they choose from all sorts of jobs, cultures, religions, races, sexuality, and more.

Part of my daily routine is walking my dogs. Living in New York City, I have a wonderful sense of neighborhood. So when I walk the dogs, I typically will run into the same people - whether they’re people leaving for work, coming home from work, other people walking their dogs. I’ve made a lot of great friends in the dog park that I never would’ve met otherwise. There are people that I met and only see there. And we’ve all become really close, it’s almost like this really fun coffee group. I know their names, I don’t really know what they do. I don’t think they know what I do in the real world. But we really connect and we talk about the dogs, of course, but then we always end up going deeper and talking about what’s going on in the neighborhood, the city, the world – (and) politics, movies… and it’s really interesting. It’s a wonderful opportunity for people to create a new social group that they may not have had otherwise.

So the next time you take your dog out for a walk, think of it as an opportunity to make new friends.

About The Host - John Bartlett

John Bartlett is an NYC-based fashion designer who has a passion for dogs and always has a home of loving animals. Currently, he is the proud owner of two rescues and a purebred Bernese Mountain Dog. John is a graduate of Harvard University and the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). He created his own eponymous “John Bartlett” Men’s Fashion collection in 1991, and later created a specialty line of dog-themed apparel and accessories with all profits supporting his “Tiny Tim Rescue Fund” (named after his three-legged rescue dog of the same name). Bartlett has long championed the issues of animal rights and welfare. He has worked alongside the Humane Society of the United States, the North Shore Animal League, and other animal rights organizations helping to raise awareness and spread the message of compassion.

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