PN – Chicken Soup for the Soul Series Seeking: Dog Stories

Dog Stories

We are thrilled to announce that we are now accepting stories for our dog topic that is to be released in 2025. Because of the popularity of this topic, we do a new dog book approximately every eighteen months so here is another chance for you to share a story or two about the member of your family who just happens to walk on four feet!

Dogs have always been considered companions and playmates that brighten our days and enrich our lives. What would we do without them? They are also wonderful and amazing teachers. The lessons we learn from our canine friends come in all shapes and sizes, just like they do. Tell us the new thing your canine friend has taught you. How smart she is or how she outsmarted you! How he made you smile. How she “rescued” you after you “rescued” her. How he brought your family closer together, helped you find love, inspired you to change something in your human life. Stories can be serious or humorous, or both. We can’t wait to read all the heartwarming, inspirational, and hysterical stories you have about your dogs.

***Please note: If you submitted a story or poem for a previous dog book and we DID NOT publish it, here is your chance to submit it to us again. If you submitted a story and we DID publish it in a previous dog book, please do not submit it. We will not publish it again.

Here are a few ideas but we know you will come up with more on your own:

– How does your dog improve your life?
– How does your dog warm your heart and make you smile?
– How did your dog show kindness to a human or another animal?
– How did your dog teach you to put things in perspective and not take yourself so seriously?
– How did your dog teach you to forgive and move on?
– How did your dog teach you to live in the present, and BE present?
– The crazy things your dog does
– The crazy things you do for your dog
– Has your dog demonstrated a surprising degree of empathy or comprehension of a situation?
– How did your dog teach you about kindness?
– Does your dog act a certain way with one family member and a different way with another?
– Did your dog get lost and, by some unexplainable miracle, return home?
– Has your dog ever done something extremely embarrassing?
– How did your dog teach you about humor?
– Did you train him, or did he train you?
– Who rescued who?
– Learning about loyalty and unconditional love
– My dog seems almost human and can understand the things I’m saying or feeling
– Does she talk back to you?
– How my dog picked me
– How my therapy dog has made a difference
– How my dog changed my family
– Your work at a shelter or rescue organization and have great stories from there

Recipe for a Winning Chicken Soup for the Soul Submission

A Chicken Soup for the Soul story is an inspirational, true story about ordinary people having extraordinary experiences. It is a story that opens the heart and rekindles the spirit. It is a simple piece that touches our readers and helps them discover basic principles they can use in their own lives. These stories are personal and often filled with emotion and drama. They are filled with vivid images created by using the five senses. In some stories, the readers feel that they are actually in the scene with the people.

Chicken Soup for the Soul stories are written in the first person and have a beginning, middle and an end. The stories often close with a punch, creating emotion, rather than simply talking about it. Chicken Soup for the Soul stories have heart, but also something extra—an element that makes us all feel more hopeful, more connected, more thankful, more passionate and better about life in general. A good story causes tears, laughter, goose bumps or any combination of these.

The most powerful stories are about people extending themselves, or performing an act of love, service or courage for another person.

Guidelines for a Chicken Soup for the Soul story

1. Tell an exciting, heartwarming or funny story about something that has happened to you or someone you know. Your story should be written in the first person and should be about yourself or someone close to you.
2. Tell your story in a way that will make the reader cry, laugh, get goose bumps or say “Wow!”
3. The story should start “in the action” and draw in the reader. Do not start your story with an introduction about what you are going to say, or end with a concluding paragraph about what you just said.
4. Don’t be afraid to speak from the heart. Many people tell personal stories for the first time in our books, and they find it to be a cathartic and productive experience. We do let you use a pen name for your story if you do not want to use your real name.
5. Don’t try fancy moves with tenses. Writing in the present tense about something that happened in the past rarely works.
6. Keep your story to 1200 words or less. Tighten, tighten, tighten!
7. Your story must be true. No fiction, no creative writing.

What a Chicken Soup for the Soul story IS NOT:

1. A sermon, an essay or eulogy.
2. An “as told to” story written by you for someone else. If you ghost-write a story for someone, we thank you for helping that person share his or her story. That person’s name will be listed as the author and he or she can acknowledge your help in the bio section.
3. A term paper, thesis, letter or journal entry.
4. About politics or controversial issues.
5. A biography or testimonial.
6. A journalistic article about a third party that reads like a newspaper article.

Guidelines for a Chicken Soup for the Soul poem

1. We love poems that tell a story. A Chicken Soup for the Soul poem does the same job as a story. The reader goes away having learned your story, just through poetry instead of prose.
2. We do not publish poems that do not tell a story.
3. We also do not publish poems that seem overly focused on rhyming and read more like greeting cards.