Dogmeat is fun, but don't spend all your time traveling with him. Take other companions, too. Each one is fun and has unique sets of responses to situations. They are all fully realized characters with their own stories and motivations, and it's neat to watch each of them. Some of them, once you've traveled with them long enough, will give you a special side quest to help them with something in particular related directly to them. And most importantly, if you travel with them long enough, then you'll get a special perk from that character which is permanent even after you dismiss them.

My suggestion is to focus on traveling with one companion exclusively until you get that companion's perk. Some of those perks are very useful in the early game. Dogmeat doesn't have any perks (other than being cute), so everyone's habit (including mine) of sticking with Dogmeat for so long in the early game is slightly detrimental to their progress.

The two companions who have the most useful early-game perks, IMO, are:

- Piper: Her perk, "Gift of Gab", doubles the XP you get from winning speech checks and discovering new locations. The earlier in the game that you get her perk, the more useful it is, because as the game progresses, you'll be doing fewer and fewer of those things. So earlier is better with her. I'm very sad because, when I lost Piper, it was in the early game before I had gotten her perk. I had dismissed her because there is an early-game quest where you must travel into a highly radioactive area, and I didn't want her to die of radiation poisoning. I took Nick instead, since he is unaffected by radiation. After that, Piper went missing, and I couldn't recover her until late-game. I've got the perk now, but I'm not getting much benefit from it.

- MacCready: His perk, "Killshot", basically gives you always-perfect (well, 95%) headshots in VATS forever. This one saves hugely on ammo, and makes you more willing to use special weapons with rare ammo. (If you are more confident the shots will connect, then you're more willing to spend the rare ammo). And using the special weapons with the rare ammo is *fun*. The fact that this perk's headshots are always perfect might be a bug. So get this perk to enjoy it before they fix the bug.

Side note: Strong is a great companion if you're hauling a lot of junk around and you're not actively trying to get a perk (his perk sucks). He has double the carrying capacity, and he's hilarious.

Because I had lost piper for so long, I've been traveling with her exclusively lately. Now that I've got her perk, I should be dismissing her and moving on to another companion, but I haven't been able to bring myself to do it just yet. I think that writing this post has changed my mind, and I'll dismiss her (carefully, checking she's not lost) in favor of a new companion. Maybe the robot butler, or the ghoul mayor this time.