"Every breath Dagwood takes fills up my lungs too"

June 8, 2019 3:19 PM

Dagwood was living a perfect life of adventure with his sister, Bucket, and his parents, Brianna and Keith, but then the unimaginable happened when he was hit by a car. Doctors said he only had a 10% chance of surviving. Watch him prove everyone wrong as his dedicated family helps him through it. Keep up with them on Instagram.
posted by Johnny Wallflower (16 comments total)

Oh, Dagwood and Bucket are *dogs*.
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 3:49 PM on June 8, 2019 [14 favorites]

Technically, Dagwood is a sandwich and Bucket is... well, a bucket.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:11 PM on June 8, 2019 [3 favorites]

Modern Medical Science comes through again.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 4:27 PM on June 8, 2019

It's really great the dog's ok, but the video's title framing it as proof that miracles happen is a disservice to veterinary science.
posted by dazed_one at 4:30 PM on June 8, 2019 [24 favorites]

Dazed_one ... yknow I used to have a similar distaste for overuse for the word Miracle, I probably retweeted something similar during the Landing in the Hudson, but after working in neonatal intensive care I really have to appreciate that despite the advances in science and the hard work of the nurses, so much of who survives and how... it is largely out of our hands. I dunno, I guess what I’m saying is life itself is a miracle and the fact that a loved pet almost died but didn’t is largely due to the work of the couple and their vets but also still amazing and mystical and whenever one is confronted with that if they want to use the word miracle the. I get it.
posted by midmarch snowman at 5:59 PM on June 8, 2019 [13 favorites]

and Bucket is... well, a bucket
It's Bouquet!
posted by Bee'sWing at 6:17 PM on June 8, 2019 [16 favorites]

I think one of the reasons I love dogs is that they are capable of having basically perfect lives for long stretches, something that we primates are not.
posted by praemunire at 6:55 PM on June 8, 2019

"Subscribe to my Instagram to watch my dog's miraculous recovery" is a much easier sell than "Subscribe to my Instagram to watch my dog's health deteriorate"
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:57 PM on June 8, 2019 [2 favorites]

I have no doubt that these people legitimately love and care for their dogs, but they're also, seemingly, professional instagram influencers whose dogs make up a really healthy chunk of their content.

Which makes me feel weird about this... like, I would hate for the "my dog's health crisis" narrative to become something that influencers realized reliably brings in those clicks. It seems like a perverse incentive.
posted by loquacious crouton at 7:01 PM on June 8, 2019 [4 favorites]

But what are they getting for their clicks? Are vendors paying them to display their wares? Maybe the doggie sunglasses & the cart behind the bike but how much can that pay? Yeah they get tons of presents for the dogs from people who follow them but that doesn't strike me as a sustainable business model a person can live off of. Does Instagram have a policy of paying their prolific users? Where's the sharp business here?
posted by scalefree at 7:17 PM on June 8, 2019

This is a bit of a derail but if you are actually curious how instagram influencers make money, one of the top google results for this family is a thoughtful interview where Brianna discusses how she makes money -- basically, she advertises a variety of brands on her instagram, or as she puts it,

"I’m using my life and my stories and my family and our adventures to represent certain brands and their values."

There are many articles on the internet discussing the economics of advertising via instagram in more detail if you are curious.
posted by loquacious crouton at 7:31 PM on June 8, 2019 [6 favorites]

Alright it can be a lot more profitable than I thought. He's still a very brave dog.
posted by scalefree at 7:41 PM on June 8, 2019 [2 favorites]

> Oh, Dagwood and Bucket are *dogs*.

Technically, Dagwood is a sandwich and Bucket is... well, a bucket.

No, Dagwood is a good boy and Bucket is a good girl.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:27 PM on June 8, 2019 [6 favorites]

i thought this was about Dagwood the cartoon sandwich enthusiast, and frankly I still think that
posted by clockzero at 11:02 PM on June 8, 2019 [2 favorites]

Hit with a car, not by a car. A driver caused this harm.

As for the "miracle" framing, I half agree. They do explicitly say "He's alive because of all the doctors, nurses, and vet-techs". But having seen my own late father fail to recuperate at a recovery facility after some dramatic medical interventions, I can say that the patient's willingness to go through hell for physical therapy can be a major factor in recovery. Some of that "10%" was likely "how likely will you be to get this patient actively performing all of the necessary exercises to recover?" That is the stuff that really is mind-over-matter, but not in a wishy-washy mystical way.

And yeah, I think that these dogs were not just beloved pets and family members, but also unpaid employees of their instagram business, so they likely had more motivations than usual to push the dog's motivation to recover (and to do so in a maximally "heart-warming" way)
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 1:31 AM on June 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

I hope this does not turn out to be The Act, but with dogs.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:11 PM on June 9, 2019