Beyond the Breeds

I'm a late-night person, so I usually notice right away when my Dog-a-Day widget pops up a new dog breed on my screen. It's just a little thrill, but it's what I like best about the app.

Even if I don't open the app and read about the breed every day, the calendar format gives me a small mood boost. It's not just Wednesday - it's Japanese Spitz Day. It's a subtle reframe for my whole day.

When we started working on Dog-a-Day, I expected I'd be writing a brief entry about 365 different breeds. But as I researched and wrote about each breed, I started thinking about the connections between types of breeds, and how dogs are embedded in our culture.

On the 15th of each month is a short essay about related topics, like:

• Wolf Dogs - What are we reaching for?
• Lion Dogs - What does that even mean?
• Landseer Dogs - what did he see in them?
• Lassie - She's in your heart.

Those are all in the app, and more along those lines.

The questions and intrigue continue for me, now that the app is complete. I started a Substack called "Gael's Daily Dogs" to have a place to continue exploring more about the human and canine partnership - what it's been, and what it's becoming.