What it’s like to adopt a dog, as told through a 14-part comic
Moscow-based comic artist Bird Born explains why adopting a dog changed his life.
Rescuing a pet is an amazing and heroic undertaking.
7.6 million pets go into shelters each year, according to the ASPCA. And of those pets, about 2.7 million pets are rescued by humans who give them forever homes.
Moscow-based comic artist Bird Born experienced firsthand the power of welcoming a pet into your family when he adopted a dog.
Then his journey to understand his newest animal friend inspired an adorable and incredibly moving comic, too.
Follow this artist's journey to help his new friend feel welcome in his home:
Rescuing animals is a big commitment, and of course it doesn't come without challenges.
When adopting any animal, there's fear and uncertainty about their past life. Were they abused? Were they malnourished? How will they respond to humans?
Despite this, Born persevered with his new dog. "It took a lot of love and care to prove this animal that she was loved and needed," he writes in his comic.
Today, he can rest easy knowing one less dog is in need. And that's proof enough that adopting a dog can make the world a better place.
This article originally appeared on 08.23.16.
- Rescue dog finally lands 'forever home' after swapping places with ... ›
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- A shelter made online dating profiles for 22 animals. The results are ... ›
- A pet photographer helps pets get adopted by taking fun photos - Upworthy ›
- A pet photographer helps pets get adopted by taking fun photos ›
- A boy in Louisiana goes the extra mile to make sure his foster dog gets a forever home - Upworthy ›
- School kids are writing wholesome notes about shelter dogs that help them get adopted - Upworthy ›
- This adorable dog named Cow had the best reaction to reuniting with the family he'd lost - Upworthy ›
- A shelter made online dating profiles for 22 animals. The results are adorable. - Upworthy ›
Before you click 'send' on anything else, read this comic. It's important.
Everyone seems to be clicking "send" a bit too early nowadays.
We officially live in a world where internet trigger-happy world leaders can send massive populations into a devolved tail spin with erratic tweets, posts, and subsequent responses. These posts can have far-reaching consequences, and in the haste to respond in kind we've forgotten that we've normalized this kind of attitude.
Boulet is a French comic artist who has been writing about this for 15 years.
Originally he started writing an autobiographical series, but when he realized how accessible it was to his readers, he decided to make it fictional. "So it's mostly 'drawn stand up comedy,'" he explains. "I'm the main character, but in the same way comedians are there own character when they are on stage. The purpose is not really to talk about me but about situations of everyday's life everyone can relate to."
In his words, "The comic (below) was an anecdote about a Facebook mistake, I had basically two choices: Use it as a Facebook status to make my friends laugh or try to dramatize the whole process into an internal crisis to make it a story."
Comic by Bouletcorp, where it originally appeared. Used here with permission.
That "internal crisis" is something Boulet is very interested in.
Boulet enjoys using the accessible medium of cartoons as a way to explore complex issues. He loves learning about and studying consciousness and neuroscience. His fans enjoy this.
"There were fun discussions in the comments about how the brain works ... the very idea that we have a parallel process that can interfere, overlap or get in conflict is actually a thing. What I found most intriguing about this story was to literally feel my hand freeze BEFORE I could put an explanation on the WHY it froze."
He also had a great suggestion as to figuring out the motivations behind certain posts. "We should always go on social networks with EEGs on. We would learn a lot."
After what we've seen on social media over the last few years, it's hard to disagree.