I want to tell you about a dog I met at the rescue shelter three weeks ago. He was, and I need you to understand that I am a grown adult with tattoos and a record about losing my faith, sitting in his little kennel with what can only be described as a deeply philosophical expression on his face. Like he had seen things. Like he had considered the matter of dog biscuits and found the whole situation wanting. His name, the volunteer told me, was Gerald. He had been there for six weeks. He was a forty-pound terrier mix with one ear that went up and one ear that went sideways and a spot on his back that looked vaguely like a handprint.
I sat on the floor outside Gerald's kennel for twenty minutes. I was technically there to drop off a donation bag of towels, which I do periodically because someone told me shelters always need towels and I believe in low-effort good deeds. I was not there to spiral into foster-fail territory. And yet.
I came home alone and in my feelings, opened TikTok, and the algorithm, which has been watching me correctly, immediately served me six consecutive adorable dog videos. And I felt better. Immediately. Not fixed, not problem-solved. Just better, the way a glass of cold water makes everything marginally more manageable.
The "adorable dogs" trend is just people sharing clips of their dogs being ridiculous and wonderful and it has been dominating my For You page for weeks. I have thoughts about why this is, why it matters, and what it says about us. But first: Gerald got adopted. I checked. He went home with a family. I felt a specific complicated emotion about this that I will get to.
why dog content hits different
The internet is full of things competing for your emotional energy. Some of it wants your outrage. Some of it wants your anxiety. A significant portion wants your money, or your data, or your compulsive return clicks. Even the stuff that seems wholesome often has an angle, a brand partnership, a product push, an inspirational narrative arc that ends with a Shopify store.
Dog content, at its purest, wants nothing from you. A dog does a funny thing. Someone films it. You watch it. The dog does not care about your engagement metrics. The dog is not building a brand. The dog saw a leaf and had a whole experience about it and that's the entire video. No subtext. No ask.
I follow a few accounts that are purely dog content, rescue organizations, people who've fostered an absurd number of dogs, the occasional account run by someone whose entire online identity is "this is my dog, here is what the dog did today." These accounts are the rare corners of the algorithm that do not make me feel worse after I've been there. I emerge from thirty minutes of dog TikTok not anxious, not sold anything, not outraged about a thing someone said. Just... slightly more convinced that things might be okay. Gerald-level philosophical.
Biscuit, and the case for dog-sitting
I don't own a dog. My apartment lease technically allows a small dog, but my current lifestyle, touring being what it is, hours in the closet studio, the general chaos of an album rollout, does not feel like the right condition for a dog who deserves consistency. Dogs need more predictability than I currently offer. I know this about myself. I honor it, reluctantly.
What I do have is Biscuit. Biscuit is my neighbor's dog, a medium-sized mutt of extremely uncertain heritage who has concluded that my apartment is his second home and that I am his second human. He comes over when my neighbor travels, which is often enough that we have a whole routine. Biscuit gets the corner of the couch. Biscuit gets the walk that goes past the good trash cans on the east side of the block, because he has opinions about which cans. Biscuit gets to sit in the studio closet doorway while I track, which he seems to find soothing or possibly confusing, hard to say with Biscuit.
The weeks with Biscuit are demonstrably better than the weeks without Biscuit. This is not sentimental. This is observational data gathered over two-plus years. When Biscuit is here, I take more walks. I take breaks at more regular intervals. I talk to at least one neighbor every day because Biscuit believes in community and will force a greeting whether you planned one or not. My sleep is slightly better because there is a warm lump at the foot of the bed and the warm lump snores very softly and it is the exact right frequency of background noise.
I'm describing, I realize, a scientifically documented phenomenon. Dogs reduce cortisol. They increase oxytocin. They give you a reason to go outside even when every creative instinct is telling you to stay inside and Keep Working. They force a schedule. They provide, as my aunt Deb has been trying to tell me since I was eight and wanted a puppy, "a reason bigger than yourself to get up in the morning." Aunt Deb has a chicken coop and four dogs and has been correct about most things.
the foster-fail dream and what it's actually about
Every person who follows rescue dog accounts has, at some point, contemplated fostering. The pitch is: you provide a temporary home for a dog while they wait for adoption. You're not adopting. You're just helping. No commitment. The dog gets a real house experience instead of a kennel. You get a dog temporarily. Easy.
The term "foster fail" exists because a significant percentage of fosters end in adoption. The human thinks they're just helping and then falls in love and keeps the dog. The rescue community uses "fail" affectionately. Everyone knows what they're doing when they start fostering a dog with soulful eyes and one ear that goes sideways.
I have thought about fostering. Specifically and repeatedly. The thing that stops me isn't the attachment, I'm not afraid of loving something. I'm afraid of doing it badly. Of bringing a dog into an unstable-schedule, occasionally-chaotic, post-album-rollout chaos situation and not being the home it deserves. The responsible choice is to wait until my life has more structure. The emotional choice is to go get Gerald even though Gerald already has a home.
What I do instead: donate towels and food and the occasional bag of toys to the rescue I like. Go in sometimes just to sit with the dogs that haven't been picked up yet. Let Biscuit be the steady dog in my life for now. Watch the adorable dog content that the algorithm, bless its cold little heart, knows to serve me when I need it.
what Gerald taught me in approximately twenty minutes
So Gerald. The terrier with the philosophical face and the sideways ear. I sat with him for twenty minutes that I didn't plan to sit, and here's what happened: I stopped thinking about the rollout. Stopped mentally editing the thing I'd posted that morning. Stopped running the numbers on streaming stats and what they might mean. I just sat on a concrete floor and looked at a dog who looked back at me with complete, uncomplicated attention.
Dogs don't do the thing where they're with you but also somewhere else. When they're with you, they are entirely with you. Every time I spend time with a dog I'm reminded that I am not capable of this and that I'd like to try harder. The presence thing. The this-moment-is-the-whole-thing thing. Biscuit has been trying to teach me this for two years and I'm a slow student but I'm paying attention.
Gerald got adopted and I was glad and I was also this small ridiculous amount of sad, because twenty minutes on a concrete floor will do that to you if you're not careful. I've been back to the shelter twice since then. Dropped off more towels. Sat with a few different dogs. I am very much not fostering right now. Taking this one step at a time like a responsible adult who knows her own limits.
Anyway. HEATHEN HYMNS is doing the thing it was supposed to do and I'm out here making my rounds and watching my adorable dog content and slowly losing the battle with my own heart. If I come back here in three months and there's a dog in my profile pictures: Gerald was a warning I didn't heed. You can say you told me so. Biscuit will probably be thrilled.
There's also a dimension to this I want to name that's easy to miss: the unconditional part. Dogs don't care about your streaming numbers. They don't care whether the album review was good or bad. Biscuit has no opinion about the rollout strategy. When I'm stressed about something that is, in the grand scheme of things, a very human and very constructed set of pressures, a dog is the fastest available reminder that most of what I'm anxious about is not visible to any creature who isn't also trapped in the modern attention economy. The dog would like a walk. The dog would like to be near you. That's the entire agenda. There is something genuinely clarifying about an agenda that simple.
My aunt Deb has always had dogs, multiple, overlapping, a rotation of various mutts with strong personalities and no pretensions. Growing up, those dogs were part of what made her farm feel like the safest place I knew. The chickens were fine. The chickens were chaotic and occasionally aggressive and I respected them from a distance. But the dogs came to find you. The dogs decided you were worth sitting next to. That distinction mattered to me as a kid and it still does. Gerald, that terrier philosopher with the sideways ear, decided I was worth twenty minutes of the concrete floor. I'm going to carry that for a while.
The rescue does good work. If you're anywhere near a shelter and you have the capacity, time, money, space, a lease that allows it, the towel donation thing is genuinely real. They always need towels. It's the most low-friction good deed I know of and it keeps me connected to the place even when I'm not in a position to do more. Someday I will be in a position to do more. Biscuit is a preview of that someday and I'm grateful for every visit.
Share your dogs with me. I'm @vixenraefr. The algorithm and I have an arrangement, and I need it fed with good material.