Topher Brophy will be donating all of his proceeds from the sale of Dog Dad to American Humane.

Can dogs make us better humans? Can animal companionship really heal the world? In telling Topher Brophy’s story, Dog Dad shows us emphatically that the answer to both questions is yes.

Is there a cure for the “sad sickness? That’s what Topher Brophy calls the feeling he has lived with as long as he can remember. As a lonely only child “on the spectrum,” a shy high schooler cursed by acne, a college student working hard to be accepted as a “frat boy,” and a young man traveling to exotic destinations in search of wisdom and inner peace, Topher never feels he belongs anywhere or to anything. Too shy to keep a friendship, he battles feelings of rejection and loneliness, always wondering why just living in the world, which seems easy for others, is so difficult for him. He tries various remedies, even becomes a sports freak in the hope that being strong will make him happy and get him “accepted.” With barbells, ropes, bands, he works out morning till night to keep the sad sickness at bay—till an injury makes even that impossible. Nothing changes anything. The sad sickness is always there.

Then Rosenberg comes into his life. Dog Dad tells how becoming a dog dad changes everything for Topher Brophy. How the companionship and love he receives from his shaggy puppy beget the companionship and love he can now give… and how that makes him feel, for the first time in his life, like he belongs in the world as it is. How Rosenberg connects him to a community of dog people and introduces him to a special person, the Dog Styler. How together, they create an Instagram sensation and a family—and dedicate both to the higher purpose of healing the world.

This is no shaggy dog story. It really happened to Topher Brophy, and it can really happen to anyone.