the dog one is the first story, it literally only could have internal issues.

but once you have a sequel or second episode it's always important to the story, because fucking it up undermines everything. You can go full dexter's lab and reset everything every time, but once you put on the mantle of continuity and ask us to care about events over time then you owe us better than voyager. A "good story" that ignores all the other ones and in turn be ignored by them isn't actually good.