I worked in a corporate job as an accountant and a business consultant for six years before the pandemic hit, and like a lot of content creators, that's when it all took off. So I resigned, and now I travel the world full time with my best friend who's a giant Goldendoodle named Brodie.
Before he was born, I never had a social media presence, Brodie forced my hand. Everywhere we went, people would always want to take pictures and videos of him. He was just such a character and was getting so much attention. I figured if people love him this much out in the real world, they're going to love him on the internet too.
I always wanted a big dog, and Brodie just didn't stop growing. I always say it's like Clifford the Big Red Dog — the more love you give him, the more he grows.
Before content creation, I always had a strong desire to travel, but with most typical nine-to-fives, you just don't have that luxury. The first thing I did when I resigned from my job was take a road trip with Brodie across the country.
After that, we started traveling for fun. I wanted to show Brodie the West Coast, so we went to Los Angeles. Then I wanted to show Brodie New York City. Now it's really become an event, and we're invited out by brands or by these large events that want Brodie there.
Now we're traveling once or twice every month. It's a fun opportunity, I can make good content out of it, and Brodie will have a good time, which is very important to me. Brodie has to be able to appreciate wherever we're going.
Brodie is my service animal, which grants him access to being in the cabin of any airliner. That's how we're able to fly in the cabin with a large dog.
Brodie has probably been on over a hundred flights in the last two years, so we've had time to try every single arrangement to figure out how am I most comfortable, how is he most comfortable, and how are the people around us most comfortable.
Flying economy is pretty much out. Since Brodie is so large, I can't just get one economy seat. We used to do two economy seats side by side, but it's still really tight. Now we pretty much always do a first-class seat. Sometimes I get him his own seat in first class, but just one first-class seat really works.
Brodie goes right underneath my legs and he'll sleep the entire flight. He'll pop his head up when it's lunchtime to ask for some food maybe, but that's it. People are always surprised when they watch me walking onto the plane, like "Where's he going to go?" But he'll tuck in underneath the legroom in front of the seat and behind the seat, and it's enough, surprisingly, and he's comfortable.
Another option is a full row in economy, so all three seats side-by-side. We can make that work but it's not preferred.
Brodie just wants to be with me. He's also just such a chill dog. He's had a little bit of training but it's really just the disposition that he was born with. He's so agreeable and he's down to do whatever. As long as he's by my side, he's okay with it.
He'll just sit there on a flight from Miami to LA and not make a peep the entire flight. When we get off the flight other passengers will see him and say, "I didn't even realize there was this giant fluff flying two rows ahead of me."
Other passengers have also been overwhelmingly positive. I've only had one negative experience where I went to sit in my first-class seat and the person next to me wasn't happy there was going to be a dog next to him. He was making kind of a big scene but, fortunately, there was a big Brodie fan a few rows ahead who happily wanted to switch spots with him, so it worked out.
Most people are pretty pumped. In comments on my posts, people often say, "I would do anything to be on a flight seated next to Brodie."
