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Paper short abstract

This paper examines canine adoption as a multispecies process of im/mobility and regeneration, showing how humans and dogs can co-create new relations while navigating regimes of mobility, care, and vulnerability.

Paper long abstract

This paper explores canine adoption as a process of multispecies regeneration at the intersection of mobility, care, and vulnerability. Drawing on an autoethnographic account of adopting a Romanian dog and my involvement in rescue networks in Switzerland, I show that adoption is not a linear or logistical transfer but a transformative relational and mobility practice. It brings together differently positioned beings—rescued dogs, adopters, volunteers—within selective and morally charged regimes of mobility that shape who can move, under what conditions, and with what consequences.

The paper examines how, through adoption, families and dogs can co-produce new forms of kinship and connection through everyday negotiations and movements, marked by trust-building and embodied, emotional adjustments. These practices constitute forms of socio-affective regeneration: through daily care, training, and shared routines, humans and dogs become-with each other, creating relationships that heal past traumas and foster security and connection.

By foregrounding dogs’ im/mobilities as both shaped by and shaping human worlds, the paper contributes to mobilities studies and anthropological debates on multispecies relations. It highlights how interspecies encounters generate transformative potentials in times of heightened moral and social polarization, offering a lens to rethink regeneration beyond the human.