Proposal: Political Therapy Dogs Will Save the USA
- Phyllis Brust, PhD
- Nov 9
- 4 min read
I take my floppy-eared 10 year-old beagle to his happy place, Bass Pro Shops. In the scorching hot Florida sun, there are few cool places to take a squirmy, inquisitive dog to have fun. Bass
sells hunting, fishing and other outdoor gear and my dog likes to smell all of it.
He feels at home there. I, on the other hand, feel like an alien. I don’t fish, I don’t camp, I don’t love guns and I have no desire to own a boat. Sometimes shoppers wear tee-shirts with political
messages that scare me. I don’t think we voted for the same people.
I’m not alone. Bass Pro Shops is considered one of the country’s most polarizing brands—it skews Republican—according to a study from the research firm Morning Consult. Bass shares this distinction with such companies as Papa John’s, NASCAR, Koch Industries, Trump Hotels (#1 on the list) and ExxonMobil.*
My dog doesn’t care about politics. He wants attention, a treat and a butt scratch. Customers and staff don’t care about our politics either. Most shoppers smile at his exuberance as he runs past them like a puppy. Some stoop down to pet him saying that they have a dog or just lost one. Bass employees play with him and scratch him in places he can’t reach. He wags his tail non-stop. He’s happy and he makes people happy.
He has a routine. He runs first to the greeter who gives him a treat from the stash under the
podium at the entrance. Then he makes a hard left to sniff the display of giant dog bones, which is right next to the gun counter and the open carry handbags. Next he pees on the fake tree (I bring paper towels) and runs to the deer attraction pellet bags looking for loose pellets (smelling only; no eating), past the cross-bow equipment to the gross-looking clear-packaged dead fish used as fish bait. He sniffs each package as an oenophile would a wine bouquet. He finishes by running past the power boats and smelling the entrance to the men’s and women’s bathrooms. Back at the front, he pleads for a treat from his favorite cashier (who keeps a supply by the register), goes outside, pees again and runs back in to repeat the process.
I am amazed by how nice people are. I learned that from my dog. I wonder if dogs have a
superpower that makes people lower their guard, smile, talk to nearby strangers and care about this little fellow that they’ve never met before. And if so, perhaps this superpower can be harnessed to help people overcome this country’s political divisiveness—like having a political therapy dog. After all, therapy dogs already exist. They provide comfort to people who are anxious because they, for example, have an exam or an upcoming surgery. A political therapy dog would help people overcome election anxiety and political fallout.
According to scientific research, dogs have the tools. You are more likely to make friends if you have a dog. (I can vouch for that one). Petting a dog can lower your blood pressure. Dogs lessen the symptoms of PTSD. They increase your feelings of happiness by raising your oxytocin levels.**
This country needs these qualities. We need something. The country has gotten so mean. For example, Politico reported that members of state chapters of the Young Republican
National Federation (in New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont whose members are aged 18-40) sent messages with “…racial slurs about Black and Latino people, praise of Adolf Hitler and jokes about sending opponents to gas chambers.”***
There are idiots on both sides. In a resurfaced 2022 video, Jay Jones, the 2025 elected Democratic attorney general in Virginia “suggested the top Republican in the state House of Delegates deserved ‘two bullets to the head.’” Vice President Vance said that was “1,000 times worse…”****
“Why can’t we have that middle ground?,” Politico quotes a Republican. That’s what dogs can do—bring things back to the middle. My dog has proven to me that people are basically decent. They want to help. They want fairness. Americans disagree on how to get there.*****
And so, I propose a forum—to be held at a park or other neutral venue where those with
political differences can express their views at an event moderated by someone skilled, like a
Judy Woodruff of The PBS News Hour who oversees the “America at a Crossroads” series. It would work because it starts with a love of dogs and a respect for caring dog owners.
For the first 10-15 minutes people people would watch their dogs play. Then the moderator
would ease into questions about politics, immigration, the East Wing destruction and other
polarizing topics. When things got heated, the moderator would lower the temperature by calling a time out to play with the dogs or asking questions like, what nicknames do you have for your dog and what’s the cutest thing your dog does.
There is another unifying question. The moderator could read an excerpt from Kristi Noem’s (the Secretary of Homeland Security) 2024 autobiography in which she writes about shooting to death Cricket, her 14 month old wirehair pointer, for being “untrainable.” The group could then discuss an appropriate punishment for Noem. I’m confident they would all agree.******
References
*** https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/jd-vance/vance-young-republicans-racism-lives-ruined-rcna237838
**** Ibid
***** Ibid
About the Author
Phyllis Brust, PhD is an award-winning career counselor and writer. Phyllis has helped organizations, including Fortune 500 companies, non-profits, NGOs and the US government, to find candidates and clients to find jobs. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (BS, MS and PhD).
CareerMutt® focuses on pet careers and pet advocacy. See our other blog posts on animal advocacy, networking, animal artists, advice for pre-vets, gaining experience and more.
©2025 Brust All rights reserved. Do not use the blog text or photographs without attribution.
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