If you’ve been to a parade in Connecticut or Rhode Island lately and swore you saw a dog behind the wheel of a tiny electric car, you weren’t hallucinating. That’s Buck Bernard, a mini Australian Shepherd who has turned himself into one of the most photographed pups on the East Coast, and with America’s 250th birthday celebrations in full swing, he’s about to get even busier.
Buck belongs to Chris Bernard, who says the dog has basically become the son he never had, which is a sentence a lot of dog owners will nod along to whether they admit it out loud or not. Two years ago Buck came from a home where, by all accounts, decent people just didn’t have the time to give him the attention he needed. These days he’s getting more attention than most local politicians, and he seems to be handling the fame better too.
The whole thing kicked off about a year ago when Chris noticed Buck had a knack for sitting still. There was a kid’s tricycle sitting in the driveway, so Chris plopped Buck on the seat, put his paws on the handlebars, and the dog just stayed there like he’d been doing it his whole life. Not long after, Chris spotted one of those little electric ride-on toy cars at a thrift shop and figured he had to give it a shot. The rest, as they say, is parade history.
What started as a backyard experiment has since taken Buck to nursing home visits, dozens of parades, and now a spot in Bristol, Connecticut’s America 250th parade lineup. Somewhere along the way, someone dressed him up in patriotic gear, and the internet did what the internet does with a dog in sunglasses steering a car.
From Thrift Store Find To Parade Circuit Regular
Once people saw Buck rolling down the street looking like a tiny, focused commuter, requests started pouring in. The first was a visit to someone sick in a nursing home, and Chris says the response was overwhelming.
From there it snowballed into parade appearances all over Connecticut and Rhode Island, with Buck reportedly making people go, in Chris’s words, absolutely nuts.
The Reactions Are Half The Fun
According to Chris, about half the people who see Buck ask the obvious question: is he actually driving? He isn’t, of course, but the illusion is good enough that it stops people in their tracks every single time.
Phones come out, photos get snapped, and more than one person has told Chris that seeing Buck turned around a rough day entirely.
Every Day Is The Fourth Of July For This Dog
With Bristol’s 250th parade on the calendar, Buck’s schedule is only getting fuller.
Chris says it never gets old, and honestly, watching a dog in aviators “drive” past a crowd of grinning strangers seems like exactly the kind of low stakes joy this country could use more of, birthday or not.