Plenty of artists write songs about their romantic partners, their parents and their children. But few do what Chris Young has done: pen a tribute to their beloved dog. Young wrote “All Dogs Go to Heaven” with Corey Crowder and Cale Dodds, in honor of his beloved dog, Porter, named after the legendary Porter Wagoner.

“If anybody ever is around me, they know I love my dog,” Young told CMT. “And even though he’s a really strong, healthy, 115-pound German Shepherd, I don’t get to keep him forever. Dogs don’t outlive us. So one day, that will come to pass, and you treat your animals like family, at least in my family. So being able to speak on that, I think, is really important.”

When the three men sat down to write “All Dogs Go to Heaven,” it was a sad day for one of the writers, which helped inspire the tune.

“’All Dogs Go To Heaven’ is a song that I wrote with a couple of buddies of mine,” Young told Sony Music Nashville. “One of them had just lost their dog … He [said], ‘You know, you don’t keep them forever.’ So I think everybody, even if it’s not a dog, if you have a pet, you can relate to this if you make them a part of your family. You just want to see him again one day. And so that’s what we wrote about.”

When Young first released “All Dogs Go to Heaven,” he joked about how close he is with his beloved canine.

“I’m not going to talk too much about him because I already did one of these interviews where I started tearing up and looked like an idiot,” Young said at the time. “But I met this dog when he was basically a baked potato size animal and he weighs 115 pounds. So I love this dog. He was a Christmas present from my little sister. He was a surprise. And he is now a 115-pound tank of a German Shepherd. I think just regardless of whether you have a big dog, small dog, whatever pet of any kind, you can kind of get the point of ‘All Dogs Go To Heaven,’ because they’re probably not going to outlive us.

“I think everybody doesn’t want to think about that,” he added. “But that’s going to be something you’re going to have to deal with at some point. And it’s just the idea of, they’ll be waiting on you when you get up there.”

“All Dogs Go to Heaven” is part of Young’s new album, Young Love & Saturday Nights, out last month. The 18-track project is Young’s first since Famous Friends was released in 2021.

“I wanted this album to be special. I had a lot of time to work on this record, even though patience is not my strong suit,” Young explained. “I decided, ‘Hey, let’s change things up a little bit.’ There are songs on here that I didn’t write. There are songs on here that I co-wrote. There are songs that I produced by myself. There are songs I produced with my friends. And I really was just trying to find a lot of things that I wanted to say.”

Young will kick off his Young Love & Saturday Nights Tour on April 25 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Find music and tour dates at ChrisYoungCountry.com.