When every social media account can feel like a reminder of what you don't have, the best thing for you is a living, breathing (yes, even occasionally drooling) reminder of what you do have. At least writer and former culture editor of Vogue Alessandra Codinha thinks so.

I am a writer who frequently writes about travel, or finds other good enough reasons to hit the road. As a result, my 9 year old golden retriever, Hugo, has been chauffeured (by me) across the country and back going on four separate times, now, and by the end of this summer, five. He has swum in all but one of the Great Lakes and both Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He has stayed at exclusive five star hotels and dusty roadside motels and the many, many kinds of places that fall between those designations. He has been glamping twice. He is cargo and companion and he is consistently great company, despite a proclivity for hunting out pizza crusts and other half-consumed fast foods on whatever city street he happens to be walking. Other than that, and the fact that he will begin to drool as soon as he becomes aware of a comestible item, he is perfect. (He is not perfectly trained — though he does know some tricks — as I have always felt that beingtoowell trained suppresses some sort of important animal joy or innate dogness.) I know that friendly, agreeable behavior and a doting disposition are considered par for the course with golden retrievers, but as with most other vaguely-psychotic-in-their-adoration dog owners (all of them), I consider his wonderful manner of being to be both utterly unique to him and an obvious credit to my influence and pet parenting skills. He is, in fact, at present the only other living creature whom I consider myself to be entirely responsible for. This is a fact of which I am very proud. You would be too, if you met him.

This was something I long took for granted. Hugo is the definition of a social animal; he has lived for most of his life as a real New York flâneur. His old name tag read “Prince of Tribeca”, because it was the truest thing anyone ever said about him. Walking him along the west side highway was how I imagined it would be to casually stroll with the Beatles; heads would turn, girls would scream, tourists would ask for photos, cars would nearly drive off the road. (Well, that’s what it felt like.) He’d sit with me on a stoop for hours on the weekends and simply receive, as passersby would stop to fondle his ears and tell him how handsome he was. When we moved across the country to Los Angeles in early 2021, it was a little difficult for him. It’s hard to give up that kind of attention for a town where nobody walks, and there are next to no pizza crusts or chicken bones or foil wrapped burritos strewn about, even if the trade is 365 days of sunshine. But six months or so into our move and my continuing to work from home, he and I went from spending only my pre-and post-office hours to nearly all day every day together, and I began to wonder less about my effects on him (soporific, apparently, as he sleeps nearly all day), and more about his effect on me. Was all of this time together, much more of which now was spent gazing into his deep and limpid eyes instead of a screen, part of why I felt markedly happier here in L.A.? Were our twice daily marches around the canyon where we live responsible for my sunnier disposition, as a daily cocktail of exercise, fresh air, and vitamin D have been shown to be? Or did the increased Hugo exposure have something to do with it?