Louboutina spends about 2 hours each day giving hugs to strangers when her owner, Fernandez-Chavez takes her for her walk.
Louboutina has become a New York celebrity, her Instagram has over 61K followers. Louboutina was named after the famous shoe designer Christian Louboutin, her nickname is Loubie. Every day she gets taken on a walk and gets to spread love and joy to people. She is so popular she has been interviewed on for various news stations.
“It’s a walk with hugging. A lot of people say she’s made their day… Like, if they had a bad day at work, maybe that’s just what they needed.” Fernandez-Chavez
The hugs started on Valentines Day 2014, Fernandez had recently ended a long-term relationship.
“She started sitting up and grabbing my hands with both of her paws, and then crossing the other paw over her paw. I remember joking with my friends, ‘At least I have someone to hold hands with during Valentine’s.’”
From that moment Fernandez realised that there were other people who might need some love on Valentines Day too so he took her out to share her love and she started to hold people’s hands. It was as if she knew that’s what she was meant to do and just did it.
“From then on, every walk, she wanted to hold hands. 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 she started hugging people around their legs. The skill was completely spontaneous as Fernandez didn’t teach her how to do it. Now every Valentines Day he takes her out to hug anyone that has contacted him via email.
“We’d run into neighbors that she knew and instead of just leaning on them, she started hugging them, and then random people who would come to us.”
Loubie doesn’t hug everyone she meets though, she has to connect with the person first.
“Sometimes people run up and ask for a hug, but I tell them, ‘I don’t think it’s going to happen,’ because she has to bond with that person first. But when she sits next to someone, then I say, ‘You’re probably going to get a hug.'”
“It’s nice to see people walk away with a smile,” Fernandez-Chavez says. “Especially with everything that is happening now, people say it’s so good to see this on the street. She’s bringing them joy. It’s very rewarding.”
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