After 13 Years Photographing Dogs, The Dogist Launches Its First Product

Elias Weiss Friedman has spent the last 13 years photographing dogs on the street, turning that work into bestselling books, a nonprofit rescue fund, and a body of work often described as Humans of New York, but for dogs. His first product came from a much smaller problem. His own dog, Elsa, is a picky eater who wouldn't touch blueberries or other healthy produce, so he went looking for another way to get antioxidants into her diet. The result is Vitality, a $35 chew developed over more than a year with a board-certified veterinary nutritionist, open for preorder now ahead of a September 22nd launch.

Vitality launches September 22nd as The Dogist's first product

The Dogist Company, the new commerce arm of the Dogist media brand Friedman built, worked with Dr. Angela Rollins, a board-certified veterinary nutritionist and clinical professor at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine, a specialty that only pertains to about 100 vets in the US. Together they built Vitality around a gap he says he found in the category: antioxidants, which help reduce oxidative stress on cells throughout the body, are largely missing from fortified dog foods and existing supplements. Friedman framed the company's mission simply; dogs do so much for their owners, he said, that a daily supplement is the least owners can do in return.

The chews combine a blueberry and pomegranate blend with curcumin and vitamin E, skip artificial colors, flavors, gums, and dyes, and ship in a recyclable tin the company says is plastic-negative through a RePurpose Global partnership. Each tin has a spot to write in a dog's name, a detail Friedman highlighted by filling in his own dog Elsa's in the launch video. A 60-count tin runs $35, or less through a Subscribe & Save plan that ships every 20 days to four months depending on a dog's size. Vitality goes live September 22nd on The Dogist Company's site and TikTok Shop.

A career built on dogs finally sells them something

Friedman started photographing strangers' dogs on the street in 2013, not long after being laid off from a corporate job, and built it into two photo books, a New York Times bestseller in This Dog Will Change Your Life, a rescue fund, and more than 10 million followers across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook. None of it required selling a product.

Vitality changes that math without changing the audience. The Dogist doesn't need to buy attention the way most new supplement brands do. The people are already there, stopping to look at the dogs. It's the same appeal that helped Wuffes grow into two big-box retail chains largely on its own community, minus the years most supplement brands spend building one from scratch.

Whether Vitality becomes a line or stays a one-off

The easy part is a first purchase from someone who already trusts the account behind it. The harder part is whether that person reorders once the new-product excitement fades, which the built-in Subscribe & Save plan is designed to measure.

Friedman hasn't said whether Vitality is the start of a broader product lineup or a single test of the idea, and there's no retail plan beyond The Dogist Company's own site and TikTok Shop for now. A second chew or supplement would signal the former. A retail deal would say the model travels beyond the feed that built it.

Source: The Dogist Company via Instagram