The dogs among us

The overlooked contributors to public life

By Ray Salvatore Jennings

Finch is a 12-year-old Labrador Retriever. His cinnamon color is a little rare for a lab. It pulls people in when they see him.  

The vet says his cancer has started to spread. He shows it in small ways now, but he still swims at the beach most mornings and carries a ball proudly back to shore. His tail thumps the floor when I walk into the room. He prances in front of his dish at dinner and dances toward the door when it’s time to go out. He noses anyone nearby for a scratch, and when you find the right spot his back leg jerks into a little jig. The prognosis is three months, yet his spirit remains bright. 

Finch, the author’s beloved retriever. Photo by Ray Jennings.

But for me, every walk feels different now. The small rituals of our days have taken on the weight of something fragile and finite. 

Walking with Finch—and with all the dogs I’ve had since I was six—has carried me into conversations, friendships, and connections I might have missed without them.

This was also true of the dog who came before Finch: Chief Blue. They overlapped briefly, one fading as the other came bounding in. Chief Blue left this world in 2015. He lived an adventurous life overseas with us, tearing up accommodations and evading border guards in twelve countries. He survived a collision with a car at two, underwent primitive chemotherapy in Serbia at four, and caused a minor riot by falling out of his crate in the cargo bay of a Lufthansa airliner and onto the tarmac in Amsterdam at five. 

Chief Blue considered himself a goodwill ambassador to cultures that generally dislike dogs. And he was loved—by many people, in many places. I’m grateful for how he, and now Finch, have connected so many of us in their own doggish way.

Dogs do this everywhere. They stitch the edges of neighborhoods together. At the park or on the sidewalk, at the dock or outside a store, they open the door to exchange. A quick laugh, a story, a passing kindness. They soften the space between strangers. They are social diplomats who ask for nothing more than a scratch behind the ears in return. Stories are told, glances exchanged, moments shared.

Communities build themselves in these small, repeated moments. Not in town meetings and church suppers alone, or in the coffee line or at the town office. Dogs make recognition easier. They give us permission to approach, to talk, to linger a little longer. In their presence, trust grows almost without notice.

With Finch’s diagnosis, I’ve been thinking more about how much of my own sense of community has been shaped by the dogs in my life. They are often the gravity that holds me to places and habits. They are sometimes the better part of how people know me—and how I know them. Like those kids who used to lean out their apartment windows in Kosovo and yell “Blue!” when we walked down the street. They knew who he was, but I’m certain they simply knew me as his owner.

Same with Finch. I’ve had people say, “I just told them you’re the people that own Finch—and they figured out who you are.”

Dogs don’t run for office or operate a food bank, but they build neighborhoods all the same. They don’t claim titles, but they nurture belonging. They create opportunities and bonds that ripple out far beyond their leashes. They are overlooked contributors to public life—quiet agents of connection, loyalty, and grace. 

Blue did it across continents. Finch has been doing it here in this town for twelve years. Even now, as he slows, he is still showing me what community looks like—and how to squeeze pure joy from nothing more than a tennis ball, even when your days are numbered.

Finch, Blue, and the dogs we have loved are part of the unseen infrastructure of our communities, reminding us of our shared humanity—and yes, even our mortality. Their presence is fleeting. But the bonds they create endure, long after the collar lies empty.

—Jennings is a writer based in East Blue Hill and founder of Durable Good, where he shares essays on quiet heroism, public service, and the work that holds communities together.