Van Gogh the Pit Bull shares some qualities with van Gogh the artist, the single ear being the most obvious.
“And Van Gogh is a bit of a gentle soul,” says Brunie Drummond, a volunteer with Austin Animal Center.
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He and a second dog — gorgeous and identical, except for this one having two ears — arrived at the city-run no-kill shelter as strays in early February. Brunie and another art-loving volunteer gave the pair their names almost immediately: Van Gogh and Gauguin.
Brunie explains:
“They were very cute and slightly rowdy together, like old drinking buddies. We decided to name them after artists and old friends Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh.”
Brunie walks shelter dogs on her days off. She recently spent some time with Van Gogh and noticed that he seemed a bit down.
Thinking that what he needs is a home — and to get a home he needs attention — she decided to insert the dog into some of Van Gogh the artist’s paintings.
For various copyright-related reasons, that plan was scrapped — and Brunie decided to send Van Gogh on an appealing around-the-world fantasy vacation instead.
Says Brunie:
“He is a complete sweetheart and just melted my heart. I wanted to make something goofy with him in order to give him more exposure.”
And of course, Gauguin couldn’t be left out of the fun, so Brunie sent him on an exciting virtual-style trip as well.
Frankly. we’re getting a bit of wanderlust looking at these pics — not to mention a hankering to go adopt some dogs.
We could draw some grim parallels here to the artists who weren’t fully appreciated during their lifetimes. But we are feeling confident that these gorgeous lovebugs will be appropriately adored before too long.
Guys, you could be in this picture, for real: The dogs can be adopted together or separately; they can go to local homes or far flung exotic locales.
Here are Van Gogh‘s and Gauguin‘s adoption listings.
Featured image via Brunie Drummond