Dennis's Story
Dennis shares how burnout and grief led to an impasse in his life, and how adopting a rescue dog helped him find purpose again.
Buster gave me purpose when I didn’t have any. He gave me something to look forward to when everything else felt empty.
In early 2022, the company I had built and poured everything into started to fade.
At first, it was slow. Ideas that used to come naturally didn’t anymore. The creative drive that fueled me every day began to drift, and I found myself constantly forcing inspiration instead of feeling it. What once gave me purpose started to feel like pressure.
Then November of 2022 hit, and everything spiraled.
My grandmother passed away. I used to talk to her every single day, no matter what was going on in my life. Yes, most of what we spoke about was family things, you know, “How’s the family? How are the kids? How is work and how’s life?” But what most didn’t know is that she was the number one supporter of the company I started. She always asked about the business; what was new, what I was working on, what the next move was. She believed in what I was building, even when I didn’t.
When she passed, I lost the person who reminded me why I was doing any of it in the first place.
The business began to fall apart, and I couldn’t seem to pull myself out of the slump. The motivation was gone. The drive was gone. The purpose was gone. I mean, everything I tried just fell flat, and the process of trying to make it work just reminded me of my grandmother, the one who always asked, “What’s new? How’s my little entrepreneur doing?”
Then in March of 2023, my wife and I lost our dog of 14 years. Now, to be fair, the dog was more my wife’s than mine, but we did raise her together. And during my wife’s hardest moment of having to let her go, I wasn’t there to comfort her. That is another thing I have to live with for the rest of my life.
With everything that had happened in just a few short months, I found myself completely lost. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. I didn’t know what my purpose was. I was just going through the motions of life, existing without really living.
At the same time, everything else started stacking up. Financial problems began to build. Bills that were once manageable started to feel overwhelming. The stress of trying to hold everything together without any direction or clarity began to take its toll, both personally and in my relationship.
Marriage issues started to show up. The pressure, the silence, the frustration, it all found its way into conversations, into moods, into the space between us. I was shutting down more and becoming distant. To me, it was easier to just ignore the problems instead of facing them. As time went on, I started drinking more frequently, not to the point of abuse, but more than normal, and pretty much daily. I stopped caring about my health, started eating like shit and stopped working out like I had been before. I stopped caring about progress. I stopped caring about much of anything at all.
A few months went by, then in mid-June, I decided to visit a local dog shelter.
It was a planned visit, but I had no intention of adopting. It was just a visit.
That’s when I met Buster.
Buster was a lonely hound who had been found wandering the streets. He had no family and no one came looking for him. No one called. No one cared.
He didn’t jump up against the kennel like the other dogs. He just lifted his head like I was just another person who was going to walk in, look at him, and leave. But in that moment, I felt something different. I saw a dog who looked like he had given up. He was also just going through the motions. The shelter staff told me he probably needed a farm. Somewhere wide open where he could run free. But something about the look in his eyes told me something different. I left that day with him stuck in my head.
A week later I went back to see him again. I kept thinking maybe he didn’t need acres of land. Maybe he just needed something simple. A family, someone to love him, a couch to lay on and someone who cared. It was at that moment I knew I had a decision to make.
On June 28th, I went back a third time, with the intention to foster him for a month just to see how it would work out.
And I won’t lie, it was complete hell. I had moments of regret, anger and doubt. At one point, I called the shelter and told them I was bringing him back. They asked me to give it one more week, and I agreed. That week allowed me to reflect on the time I’d spent with Buster. Yes, it was hard and tested my patience. But, somewhere in the middle of the chaos, frustration, and adjustment, something had changed. I found a reason to get up again, a reason to move forward, and a reason to care.
Buster gave me purpose when I didn’t have any. He gave me something to look forward to when everything else felt empty. And in helping him find a home, I found myself again.
On August 1, 2023, I made the official decision to adopt Buster and make him family, and in March of 2024, I started a new company based on our bond and the power a dog can have on a man.
That company became Beards & Barks.
Until now, I’ve kept most of this story to myself.
As a man, I told myself I wasn’t supposed to show weakness. I didn’t want my wife or my kids to see me struggling, so I buried my feelings. I stayed quiet and I carried the weight alone.
But the truth is that staying silent doesn’t make you stronger. It just makes the weight heavier.
Dennis Conrow
Linden, United States
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