Meet the urban backpacker making adoptable dogs famous

On a recent drive to my 13-year-old daughter’s school for drop-off, I told her about this cool guy I would be chatting with for my latest assignment. I hadn’t gotten past the words “He carries adoptable dogs on his back around New York City” when she shrieked: “I know who he is! I follow him!”

And just like that, I had quite accidentally stumbled into the unfamiliar territory of possessing whatever today’s version of street cred is. Me. Mom to a teen. I was, at last, someone to be impressed by. After all, I was going to be talking to an influencer. Like, an actual one. I had to suppress a chest thump.

But wait. This isn’t a story about a famous social media influencer — the term used today to describe someone whose online life affects the behavior of their followers and ultimately gives the influencer that new breed of famous. Or, then again, maybe it is.

By all accounts, Bryan Reisberg, the man who has accrued millions of followers who tune in regularly across various platforms to watch him carry adoptable dogs on his back, is certainly impacting behavior. And, heck, his growing fame is undisputed. With more than 100 million views of his video content, Bryan and those adorable dogs have attracted the attention of everyone from politicians to Saturday Night Live cast members to my oh-so-discerning daughter and her friends — and most important of all, vast numbers of potential adopters.

That’s what this story is really about.

It started as a means of fulfilling a need when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York deemed it mandatory for dogs to be in carriers while travelling on the subway with their humans. It then ballooned into something beyond Bryan’s wildest imagination — and his is an imagination with few limitations. A filmmaker and one-time advertising creative director, Bryan understands the value of the light-bulb moment. When he couldn’t find a suitable carrier for his beloved Maxine — the corgi who escorted him to the office each day — he did what any ideas guy would: He designed one. Hey, necessity is the mother of invention, right?

“I wanted to take Maxine everywhere with me,” he says. “So I put her in the backpack, and she loved it. And commuters loved it. I spent two years working with top product designers and vets to create something safe and supportive for both dog and human.” So it was that Little Chonk, Bryan’s line of pet products, was born.

Videos he posted of the two of them on their daily trips around the city went viral, and Maxine became an internet sensation, as the duo amassed approximately 7 million followers across social media platforms. When the Maxine One backpack launched on Maxine’s sixth birthday in 2021, it sold out in four minutes and was named the best dog backpack by Wired magazine, whose mandate is to bring its audience “the future as it happens.” Wired’s recognition of the immediate popularity of this special backpack certainly felt prophetic.

But last summer, while Maxine was recovering from surgery, Bryan found himself with a temporary vacancy where his trusted companion usually sat. Recognizing that Bryan and Maxine enjoyed a sizeable fan base by this point, a friend suggested that Bryan take adoptable dogs out for backpack adventures while Maxine was on crate rest.

So he reached out to Best Friends. In July, he walked into the bright and cheery Best Friends Pet Adoption Center in SoHo and walked out with Axl, a big, goofy 8-month-old dog, nestled snugly on his back. “That was two hours of pure joy,” Bryan recalls. “If that ride hadn’t gone well, who knows if I would’ve kept going. Axl made everything possible and opened my eyes.”

Not only did Axl experience his first ride on the subway, a romp in Central Park, a new toy, and his first pup cup from Starbucks, he got so much more: exposure. In a comment on Bryan’s social media post, Best Friends staff wrote: “Adventures like these help shelter dogs get socialized to different people and situations and give them a break from the kennel, which in turn helps them get adopted faster, as adopters have a better sense of who they are personality-wise.”

Life of adventure for a dog who couldn’t be left behind

The validation of success didn’t just come from Bryan’s warm and fuzzy feelings or from Best Friends staff. The sheer number of views spoke volumes. More than 3.5 million viewers across all platforms saw how sweet Axl is, dangly tongue and all. “When I posted the video of Axl, the response was immediate,” Bryan says. “That’s when I got confirmation: We have something here.”

Something truly special, that is. It’s one thing for a cute video to go viral, but it’s quite another when a cute video has the power to save lives. For Bryan, it was clear that his time with Axl wasn’t going to be a one-and-done. “When I brought Axl back and was cuddling with him, I was already thinking about how fast I could come back and do it again with another dog,” he says.

After Axl, there was Genesis, and after Genesis, there was Shorty — who boasts the highest number of views, 43.5 million across all platforms. After Shorty, there was Lucy Goosey and Legend and Pear and Hurley and Nova and Latte. And then there was Pinetta, who weighed in at an impressive 70 pounds and holds the record for heaviest dog Bryan has carried on his back. Every single one of those pups has been adopted since their outing with Bryan (and one was returned, but don’t worry, we’ll help get him into another home). To date, Bryan has taken about 20 dogs on “rides,” as he refers to their adventures, with no plans to stop.

The impact of these excursions cannot be overstated. Big dogs who might otherwise not be on adopters’ radar are being put in the spotlight, and the public is lapping up Bryan’s backpack buddies. Best of all? Views translate into adoptions, and adoptions translate into lives saved. An estimated 200,000 dogs were killed in U.S. shelters in 2025 alone. But if only 6% more of the estimated 7 million households who will acquire a pet this year choose to adopt rather than buy from a pet store or breeder, we could end the killing of dogs and cats in America’s shelters.

Since Bryan started his Best Day Ever outings (as each video is titled on his posts) with adoptable dogs from Best Friends, the total number of dog adoptions is 379, compared with 198 during the same time period the previous year. While Amy Gravel, Best Friends manager of marketing and social media strategy, admits that success can’t be attributed entirely to Bryan, she says, “We can definitely say he played a role.”

Adventures abound for adoptable dogs

Take a dog like Pear, an energetic 5-year-old with a serious love for hot dogs. On September 23, when Bryan posted the video of Pear’s Best Day Ever, no one could have predicted that within 24 hours, people would flood the Best Friends website with applications to adopt her. Not a bad problem to have. In a single day, Pear was seen more than 2 million times online and was subsequently adopted by a man from upstate New York who knew she was the one. Her looks and personality, showcased in such an unforgettable way by Bryan, reminded him of the cherished dog he had lost a few years prior.

While Pear’s story is heartwarming, increasing the visibility of adoptable animals doesn’t have to be relegated to urban centers or to those with a huge following online. As Best Friends CEO Julie Castle reminds us in a recent Best Friends blog post, we can all do our part on a local level. If we love the viral animals-in-need stories we see online, we can create the next one.

Who, us? We can actually do that?! Yes. It’s simply a matter of checking in with our local shelters; finding out who’s waiting to be noticed; and then sharing their stories in group chats, neighborhood web pages, and everyday conversations. A handful of shares can turn into inquiries. A single inquiry can inspire a family to hop into a car and head to the shelter. As Julie puts it: “Chain reactions change outcomes.” Just ask Bryan, who decided to design a carrier so he could transport his own dog on the subway, and as a result, a growing number of once-homeless dogs are now curled up on someone’s lap. Or snuggled on their back, as the case may be.

“One of the best ways to help is by showing people that adoptable pets are just like the ones you meet at a friend’s house or see playing in the park. I think that’s why Bryan’s videos are so great,” says Elissa DeNapoli, Best Friends marketing specialist. “It takes the dogs out of the kennel and shows them out in the world. The backpack rides are such a game changer for showing off the dogs’ personalities to people who might never have considered adopting.”

On a call with Bryan, I asked him how the experience of working with Best Friends has impacted him, above and beyond obvious perks like increased cardio fitness (see above reference to the 70-pound Pinetta). “It’s changed my life,” he says. “Before, I had my preconceived notions like yeah, adoption is great, but if I want a dog for my family, I want a certain dog, and I thought that was only attainable by going through a breeder. But whatever dog you want, that exists in a shelter.” (We won’t argue, Bryan.)

But it is how Bryan ends our call that perhaps best articulates the lasting impression so many adoptable dogs have had on him. “One of these days,” he says, “you’ll see a video where the dog doesn’t go back to the shelter in the end. Instead, he’ll be coming home for good with me.” We look forward to that. And I have every confidence that the online animal-loving world, including my daughter and me, will help turn a feel-good story into yet another viral, lifesaving one.

This article was originally published in the May/June 2026 issue of Best Friends magazine. Want more good news? Become a member and get stories like this six times a year.

Our goal at Best Friends is to support all animal shelters in the U.S. in reaching no-kill. No-kill means saving every dog and cat in a shelter who can be saved, accounting for community safety and good quality of life for pets. 

Shelter staff can’t do it alone. Saving animals in shelters is everyone’s responsibility, and it takes support and participation from the community. No-kill is possible when we work together thoughtfully, honestly, and collaboratively.