After leaving the corporate tech world, one Upstate New York man’s career has gone to the dogs, in the best way.
John Fabiano, originally from Amherst just outside of Buffalo, had long envisioned a globe-trotting adventure where he’d photograph dogs in different countries and document their bonds with humans. Photography had always been a passion, starting as a hobby that began in high school that continued into adulthood as he traveled more frequently.
In 2020, during the downtime of the Covid-19 pandemic, he invested in his first high-quality digital camera and started taking photography lessons.
By 2022, a window of opportunity opened for Fabiano to leave his daily corporate grind. He took the leap, accelerating plans for his photography journey. He began reaching out to journalists, organizations and other photographers to share his idea, hoping someone might offer support.
He was blown away by their welcoming response.
“I was a nobody. I didn’t have a photography Instagram,” Fabiano said. “I would send them my personal Instagram with photos of my dogs. I really hadn’t told anyone that I was doing this. I wanted to work on this on my own before announcing it and doing it.”
That changed when he met a woman in Germany who bred German shepherds. Their connection was instant. She praised his photography, even calling him an artist.
“The energy and motivation I had after that — I just felt like this has some legs,” he said. “If I can continue to interact and meet with people like this around the world, this is going to be incredible. I realized that the connections with the people that I meet are going to be just as important with the dogs that I’m going to observe and photograph.”
Since leaving on that first flight in 2023, his project, now called “Wags Around the World,” has taken him to 19 countries and counting. It has become his full-time career. He organizes his work into four categories: wild dogs, working dogs, purebred dogs and “the underdogs.”
Fabiano said he has encountered remarkable contrasts in the way dogs are treated and viewed around the world.
In Germany, for example, German shepherds are pampered, high-value animals with international demand.
In Greenland, dogs are working animals; tools for survival, not pets. He observed sled dogs chained outdoors year-round in the frigid Arctic Circle.
“It’s very ingrained in the culture there that dogs are part of the community to help them survive,” he said. “It was really remarkable to watch how much these dogs could accomplish. They could run for miles and miles, and then, you know, as soon as you stop, they’re ready to run again. Their endurance and will to work is incredible.”
In India he focused on street dogs, animals without official owners. Some of them are in pretty dire situations, he said, but others get “adopted” by a block or an apartment building who feed them and look out for the canines.
Fabiano is still traveling today and is most recently spending time in the Netherlands. He has met therapy dogs, police dogs, truffle hunting dogs and more.
In October 2024, one of his photos earned him the title of Documentary Dog Photographer of the Year from Dog Photography Awards.
His beautiful photos also do good for all the good dogs out there. Fabiano’s annual Wags Around the World calendar supports local charities with a donation of a portion of the proceeds. Last year he teamed up with Friends of the City of Buffalo Animal Shelter to support their work in helping shelter dogs in need.
He had advice for anyone considering a leap into the unknown to follow a dream.
“You’re never going to feel fully ready until you start really doing it,” he said. “I planned it out for a long time, it was years. It was coming to fruition and just days before I was leaving, I was packing and I almost had a mental breakdown that week because it was just so overwhelming that what I really wanted was coming real.”
The stress melted away on his first flight to Germany.
“You don’t know what you don’t know and you figure it out while you’re in the endeavor,” Fabiano said.
You can follow along with Fabiano’s travels on both Instagram and Facebook.
See more photos from “Wags Around the World” below:
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