We all know how much joy dogs bring to the world. But Cesar Fernandez-Chavez’s dog is a straight love bug. She loves on just about everyone she comes across and she does it with a great big hug.
As soon as Louboutina, who also goes by Loubie, hits the streets for a walk the lovin’ begins.
“It’s just not a regular walk,” Fernandez-Chavez told The Dodo. “It’s a walk with hugging. So we don’t get to go too far.”
Fernandez-Chavez knew before he even got a dog on his birthday that he wanted a female golden retriever named Louboutina, named after shoemaker Christian Louboutin, since he had always wanted to be a doggie dad.
Her affectionate nature began around Valentine’s Day in 2014 after Fernandez-Chavez went through a break-up.
“She started sitting up and grabbing my hands with both of her paws, and then crossing the other paw over her paw,” said Fernandez-Chavez. “I remember joking with my friends, ‘At least I have someone to hold hands with during Valentine’s.'”
Every since then, holding hands became her thing.
“From then on, every walk, she wanted to hold hands,” Fernandez-Chavez told The Dodo. “She would just sit up and cross her paw over the other, and look around like a lady. People passing by were like, ‘Oh my god, she’s so cute.'”
A few years later, Loubie graduated to hugs. One day she just wrapped her legs around her dad’s knees and starting hugging.
“I thought, ‘This is weird. What’s going on?’ But I let her do it,” Fernandez-Chavez explains.
Soon thereafter, Loubie started hugging strangers she met on the streets.
“I never thought that having a dog like Loubie would have also been a way to help people, but it was in a very organic, unplanned way,” Fernandez-Chavez told The Huffington Post. “Now, Loubie heals a lot of people on the streets of New York City, with love and hugs. She is a natural healer.”
Louboutina has become a social media star known as “The Hugging Dog” with more than 167,000 followers on Instagram.
“She naturally loves people and likes to please them; when you get to meet her, you can experience how affectionate she is firsthand,” Loubie’s dad said. “They said that dogs copy the personality of their owner and I think, in general, Loubie and I are very similar, but she much more extroverted than me (sometimes I can be very shy). Loubie goes to everyone and loves to hug everyone in spite of their gender, race, or sexual orientation.”
Whereas Louboutina used to walk up to people and give them hugs, now people recognize her and stop for a hug. Her Instagram is tagged with tons of photos of people who stop her on the streets. You can check out Loubie’s lovefest on her Instagram page here.
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