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Hugging dog is New York City's newest celebrity

Golden Retriever has 168,000 Instagram followers
Posted at 4:32 PM, Jul 13, 2017
and last updated 2017-07-13 17:32:54-04

Celebrity sightings in New York City aren’t uncommon, but most of the time you have to be in the right place at the right time.

But that’s not always the case!

We found one block in the Big Apple where everybody knows where, and when, a celebrity of a different kind will make her daily appearance for her fans.

Her name, is Louboutina.

Named after the French shoe designer Christian Louboutin, she’s called Loubie for short.

Loubie is a Golden Retriever.

When her owner takes her on her daily walk down 7th Avenue, they don’t get very far.

That’s because people from all around the world stop them to pet Loubie, take a picture, and hope for one thing:  that she’ll hug their leg.

Loubie’s owner, Cesar Fernandez-Chavez, says it starts with a lean, then Loubie sits upright and finally latches on.

Fernandez-Chavez admits, “It’s a little overwhelming sometimes. “  But he says, “It’s nice to interact with people in New York.  It’s very unlike New York.  We’re in a rush here.”

Loubie has 168,000 followers on Instagram, and we found seemingly just as many fans on the streets of New York City.

We met one family from Honduras who made it a special point to find her.

The tourist said, “We’ve been following her on Instagram, all her moves, tracking them and we finally get the chance to meet her.”  We asked, “What do you think?”  “Yeah, pretty cool.”

All of this means Fernandez-Chavez says in the end, their daily walk only lasts a couple of blocks because of all the attention.

And it’s going to continue.  Loubie now has an agent, and an intern to help with her marketing and appearance requests.  She’s even starting to travel to other countries with her owner, to meet fans around the world.