Special Edition of the PuppyUp Foundation Newsletter
Luke Hudson and Indy
PuppyUp Nation
(By Luke Robinson, Founder, PuppyUp Foundation)
Six years ago on June 19, 2010, Hudson, Murphy and I walked the final mile from Back Bay Fens to the Boston Common alongside hundreds of friends and their canine companions who had traveled from 21 states to be there that day.
When I started out on the road from Austin, Texas, I didn’t have much – just a couple hundred bucks in my pocket and a few friends helping me out. The focus was so intense on each and every step and each and every mile it seemed unfathomable just how far and how long our journey would take us. And we have gone far! As we celebrate our sixth anniversary, the PuppyUp Foundation has achieved many incredible milestones.
Recently I traveled to Madison, Wisconsin for their record-breaking year ̶ over 1,100 people and 700 dogs, and over $130,000.00 raised. It’s such an exciting energy to be a part of Team Madison, and during a speech by our Scientific Chair, Kai Shiu said how great it was to be a part of PuppyUp USA. I thought, “Wow, that’s neat.”
But then I thought, “Our reach is international and all of us really are brought together by a common thread that spans borders.” I feel that we’re becoming an ‘institution’ and that’s when it hit me. We are a PuppyUp Nation!
I feel like that at every walk I’ve had the privilege to personally participate in. I am often asked, “What are you most proud of?” And my response has always been, “To go from town to town and see how excited the communities are, and how successful they’ve been putting on walks. That makes me the proudest.”
That’s why I wanted to share this inspiration with a commemorative T-Shirt to celebrate our sixth anniversary ̶ as a way to say thanks to everyone who has made this such a successful organization and as a reminder that we are all together in this, and we stand in solidarity.
Thank you, all of you, for being a part of PuppyUp Nation!
Hudson, Indiana & Luke
PuppyUp Nation T-Shirts
Our new PuppyUp Nation Ts come in four great colors.
Become a part of the PuppyUp Nation. We now have special PuppyUp Nation T-shirts celebrating our solidarity. Show your PuppyUp pride! 100% cotton, in 4 fun colors, and perfect for summer. Order your T-shirts here.
Luke, Hudson, and Murphy crossing the Purple People Bridge
Special Retrospective Video
“When I reach the place I’m going
I will surely know my way
And I will turn and look inside me
Bid farewell to one more day
Every light begins with darkness
Every flower was once a seed
And with the sun and wind to test us
We are bound to be released.” ~ Patty Loveless
We’re pleased to share with you this wonderful Sixth Anniversary Retrospective Video produced by our friend Deana Kristen Wehr. Meet some of the people, puppers, and places Luke, Hudson, and Murphy visited on their first walk from Austin to Boston. Enjoy.
Happy Anniversary PuppyUp!
While you’re recovering from your Father’s Day celebrations, the Summer Solstice, the First Day of Summer, and the full moon, we hope you’ll find a few minutes to post a picture of your dog on our PuppyUp Foundation Facebook Wall and tell us what PuppyUp means to you.
We will share your stories and photos on our wall.
While you’re at it, we hope you’ll also chip in $36 ($6 for every year we’ve been around), or $6 for every year you’ve known us. You can do that here. Thanks! Remember, your donations are tax deductible!
Luke, Hudson, and Murphy. The walk begins.
PuppyUp Turns 6
(by Erich Trapp, Editor, PuppyUp Newsletter)
In the 8 years since Luke, Hudson, and Murphy left Austin, Texas in March of 2008 and finished their first walk in Boston, Massachusetts on June 19, 2010, the PuppyUp Foundation has gone through several incarnations. You’ll find us across the internet as 2 Dogs 2000 Miles, 2 Million Dogs, and finally who we are now ―the PuppyUp Foundation. But in all that time our goals have remained steadfast: education and awareness, empowerment and mobilization, and investment in cutting-edge research.
Entering Boston city limits. We’re almost there!
Today is the sixth anniversary of the inception of the nation-wide PuppyUp Walk. When Luke and The Boys arrived in Boston on June 19th, he, and the hundreds of others waiting to celebrate with him, knew it was only the beginning of the journey ― a journey people and dogs around the nation would take, step after step, mile after mile, year after year.
Motivated not only by the determination of Luke and his Fuzzy Butts (Malcolm, Hudson, Murphy, and Indiana), but more importantly by their own confrontations with cancer ― in their beloved pets, in their families and friends, and in themselves ― people continue to be drawn together in their crusade against cancer in pets and people, organizing PuppyUp Walks and other PuppyUp events in cities and towns across the nation.
PuppyUp Walk and celebration in Colorado.
So today we celebrate! We celebrate the amazing efforts of an all-volunteer, grassroots organization that has, to date, raised over half a million dollars for comparative oncology research. We applaud the power that people, mobilizing for a common good, create for themselves and others. And we mark the inroads we’re making to educate people, both about the similarities between cancer in dogs and cancer in people, and about how translational research benefits everyone.
Most importantly, we look to the future. The PuppyUp Foundation has grown from one man and his two dogs to an unstoppable movement of people emboldening themselves and others to take cancer head on, unifying as the PuppyUp Nation.
Here are just a few of the many videos marking the journey that began just a few short years ago. Enjoy!
2 Dogs 2000 Miles original trailer The Walk Begins
Hudson and Murphy Booties Check
Off to a Slow Start or “We’re waling WHERE?”
Video from Newtown, CT
Would you like to subscribe to the PuppyUp Foundation Newsletter? Please email us and we’ll put you on our email list: ginger@puppyup.org or erich@puppyup.org. Just tell us you’d like to subscribe. (Newsletters come out once a month.)
