06-09-2024 Capital Style - Flipbook - Page 60
U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association —
and during lunch, she likes to get outside and
stretch her legs.
Happy hobby
“I would take long walks, and I just wanted
to pet all the dogs I saw,” she said.
Her “soul dog,” a Pekingese named Tyler,
had died one year earlier of lymphoma at age
7, and Norfolk said that spending time with
other people’s pets kept her from missing him
too much.
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“I started to document the dogs I met with
my phone, and one day I thought, ‘I should
catalog them and put them out on social
media.'” she said. “It was my outlet to fill the
void of not having a dog at that time. It made
me happy, and I thought it would make other
people happy, too.”
And thus “Dogs of Annapolis” was created
in 2016. Gradually over the past eight years, the
blog has picked up more than 8,000 followers on
Instagram — a result that Norfolk attributes to
her subjects’ effortless charisma and undeniable
star quality.
“I feel chosen when a dog interacts with me,”
Norfolk said. “When a dog is happy, it makes
you happy.”
Norfolk said she modeled her blog on
two internet blockbusters: Brandon Stanton’s
“Humans of New York,” and Elias Friedman’s
“The Dogist.”
But unlike these two blogs, which pair
pictures with stories about their subjects,
Norfolk’s posts contain very few words other
than the dogs’ names, breeds and ages. Partly,
