Every Dog is a contemporary crime story about people on the bottom rung of the social ladder struggling to move up. The story addresses issues such as poverty, prejudice, abandonment, friendship, justice, karma, loss, and love.

Doc is a young African American who met the love of his life while attending college, only to lose everything when wrongly convicted of a violent crime that resulted in years in prison. His life derailed and without skills or education, he scrapes out a living sweeping floors and cleaning bathrooms at a clothing factory in downtown Boston.

He befriends Billy, a 20-something loner who works on the loading docks. Desperate to get a foothold on life, the Black man and his younger White friend are recruited by Billy's girlfriend, a dancer at a strip club, to rob the club's night courier on New Year’s Eve for the cash receipts.

Expecting a few thousand dollars, Doc and Billy discover the take is millions, and that the cash was to be laundered for Russians mobsters. Pursued by the police, gangsters, and the dancer’s silent partner, Doc and Billy escape south to Gainesville, Florida, and ultimately to Venice Beach and Santa Monica, California, where one night on a beach in Malibu, the consequences of their crime come to an end, and Doc finds himself confronting the man whose false testimony sent him to prison.