National Dog Day: Gus Kenworthy chats about Autotrader calendar, dog rescue and more
Olympic freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy is a busy guy, and he most recently appeared as a cover model in an Autotrader calendar published through Dogtrader for National Dog Day.
Besides featuring Kenworthy and his Korean Jindo rescue pup Birdie, the calendar also features adoptable rescue pups that can be found on Dogtrader, and social media superstars like Dogstagram’s Rambo the Puppy, WillieCute and the Goldenwoofs.
(Autotrader also released their 2021 Best Cars for Dog Lovers list for National Dog Day as well.)
Viewers will remember Gus Kenworthy as a freestyle skier who competed in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, earning a silver medal in slopestyle in Sochi.
But the British-American skier has also claimed five X Games medals, seven Winter Dew Tour medals, and several world championship events, in addition to a budding acting career, appearing on American Horror Story: 1984, Will and Grace and various reality shows, and as a TV personality during the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games.
Besides being an animal welfare advocate who has appeared in the 2018 Puppy Bowl, he is also very active as an advocate for LGBT rights.
He chatted with Wesley and Dog O’Day via video meeting last week to talk about Birdie, how he got into dog rescue, and more.
Gus Kenworthy chats with Dog O’Day about his dog Birdie and more.
Dog O’Day – Could you tell me a little bit about your dog Birdie, and how you came to adopt her?
Gus Kenworthy – Yeah, my dog Birdie is a Korean Jindo mix, I actually adopted her from a dog meat farm in South Korea. I was in Pyeongchang at the time competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics, and I do a lot of work with the Humane Society International; they were in the process of shutting down a lot of dog meat farms, so I went with them to the farm, so that I could see how much of an atrocity it was, in person, so that I could better advocate for them.
While we were there, there was a dog actually giving birth in one of the cages; one of those puppies born that day is my dog Birdie. So we are very connected.
That’s awesome. And what is her personality like, just like in daily life?
She’s honestly just the sweetest dog. Her personality is just that she’s VERY happy go lucky; she’s pretty independent, at home she does love to be cuddling, but she’s kind of like a cat sometimes in how she’ll leave the room and go off to her own room and curl up in a ball and kind of be on her own. Which I like, she’s an independent woman and she needs her own time. But otherwise…she’s just so sweet, she gives kisses, she’s just a really good girl.