Heart-swelling inheritance dispatch — December 10, 2025
Streaming right NOW, the movie The Friend dives hammer-first into a story of grief, growth, and one woman suddenly inheriting a dog she NEVER signed up for. When Bill Murray’s character, Walter, dies, he dumps his pony-sized Great Dane, Apollo, onto his pal Iris—played by Naomi Watts. And Iris is straight-up blown away: not just because her dead buddy basically willed her a living, breathing 180-pound couch, but because she logs in a tiny rent-controlled Manhattan apartment where pets are RIGIDLY banned. Yes, an eviction notice is literally just one of the disasters on the menu. She fights it at first, but pretty soon Iris is hopelessly head-over-heels for the giant goofball, risking everything to keep him. At its core, this flick is a love letter to all those wild, unplanned connections that sneak up on you and quietly flip your entire world.
Naomi Watts and Bing inThe Friend
canine totem — Cut to a few years back, when this exact movie played out IRL for me. My elderly neighbour, Sandra, passed away—and suddenly I got the call asking if I'd take in her Husky, Gaia. Me, the LAST person on the planet anyone would bank on. Why? For one very good reason: I wasn’t a dog person. At all.
But the moment Gaia marched into my family, EVERYTHING changed. Unlocking my door—and my heart—didn’t just tweak my daily routine. It flat-out rebooted my whole existence.
Rewind to before the 10-year-old ice-blue-eyed Husky took over my place: I'd already volunteered to walk her twice a day while Sandra was in hospice care at home. Even so, going from part-time helper to full-time dog guardian was a serious adjustment. As an empty nester working from home, I called every shot on my own schedule—most mornings hunched at my desk, afternoons freed up for appointments and errands. Skipping town? Lock the door, gone. No dog, no dependents, my time belonged entirely to me.
Throwing my home—and my heart—wide open changed far more than my to-do list. It rewired my entire life.
And then—BAM—in walked Gaia. How could I resist this playful little chaos gremlin who promptly became my office mate, curling up to doze beside my desk? Suddenly my whole day orbited around her. We'd hit the trail in the morning, then again at noon after she'd do her little dance around my home office to announce it was STROLL TIME through the neighbourhood. Out-of-town plans? Cancelled, baby. I was staying home with her.
canine totem — Before I knew it, my social feeds were a 24/7 scrollfest of dog-nutrition debates and senior-canine care guides. And at her vet visits? I was that client—firing off a relentless volley of questions at the doctor.
For all my initial hesitation about taking responsibility for Gaia, those daily walks proved she was a calm, sweet-natured soul. And some little voice in my head whispered: turn her into a THERAPY dog. So I did the online course through Pet Partners, and together we NAILED the certification test. Not long after, we were volunteering at the local children’s hospital, and within months we'd added a hospice, grade schools, colleges, and the library’s beloved “Read with Rover” program to our rounds.
Look, I'd grown up with dogs and even shared a home with a few as an adult—but my canine-whisperer skills? Underwhelming at best. My son and a small army of wonderfully patient pet-store associates became my dog sherpas, dragging me into the dizzying universe of dog puzzles, grooming kit, and harnesses. But the real teacher? Gaia herself, who schooled me in exactly what the human-dog bond is made of.
Naomi Watts and Bill Murray inThe Friend
And she’s far from alone. Plenty of others have stared down a surprise dog inheritance and come out richer for it. Take 2018: after her neighbour’s mom died out of the blue, leaving her dog Jules high and dry, Bryley Hull offered to watch him. She'd only known the nine-year-old mixed breed a measly six weeks before adopting him. “The first time I entered the mom’s home, Jules greeted me with such friendliness and sweetness,” says Hull. That very first night, he followed her around and slept curled beside her bed.
canine totem — Three years later, when Jules passed away, Hull took stock of just how deep this pup had burrowed into her life—and into everyone lucky enough to meet him. “He was my buddy and kept me sane during the pandemic,” she says. “He had a spark that people noticed, and he was such a relaxed dog that taking him in public was a joy.”
There's one question pulsing right through the middle of The Friend: “What’s going to happen to the dog?” And boy, do I know that one. In the stretch between walking Gaia while my neighbour couldn’t and the Husky officially moving in, friends and neighbours kept asking where she'd end up once Sandra was gone. My answer, every single time: “I don’t know.” It honestly never even crossed my mind that taking Gaia in was on the table.
Kathy and Chris Calise stared down that exact same gut-wrenching question after their friend Nathaniel was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident. Just a year earlier, they'd looked after his sweet Bull Terrier, Rosie, while he was away. Then they caught wind that Nathaniel’s sister was planning to take Rosie into a home already bursting with five kids and six dogs—so they reached straight out to her.
“If you decide you don’t want to take Rosie, we’d be happy to have her,” they wrote to his sister. “We can never emulate the relationship that she had with Nathaniel,” Kathy told her, “but we would love her dearly.” And once the sister saw the unbreakable bond the three of them shared, she handed Rosie over for good.
One of the surprise perks of life with Gaia? The masses of new humans I've met criss-crossing the neighbourhood. Rick Venturi and his wife, Carla, hit it off with their neighbour, Nancy, during daily walks with their two dogs. When Nancy brought home Major—a Pit Bull with one crossed eye—her health was already spiralling, so the Venturis volunteered to walk Major twice a day. And whenever Nancy landed in hospital, Major (and later the neighbour’s cat, Patches) crashed with them.
canine totem — These two never planned to adopt another dog—but fate had other ideas. One night, Nancy called from the hospital and asked if they'd step up as guardians for her two pets. Venturi said yes on the spot and promised he'd bring Major to see her at the skilled nursing facility she was moving into the very next day. But the next morning, when he couldn't reach Nancy by phone, her daughter delivered the crushing news: she had passed away.
“Major has added another layer of love to our home,” says Venturi. “Now having him here feels like having a little part of [Nancy’s] spirit staying here with us.” And honestly, that sentiment says it all.
Gaia and I have now racked up two and a half throttle-your-heart years together, reshaping me from flat-out dog-indifferent to a total dog devotee. As head-over-heels as I am for this kind, stubborn, endlessly patient Husky, I've got to own it: had I said no to adopting her, I doubt I'd ever have had any dog in my life at all. I certainly would never have gone for a big, senior pup—yet she's the one who dragged me out of my shell, made me comfy chatting up strangers, and handed me a way to give back to the community. Now, just like Iris in the movie, I honestly can't picture my world without her.
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