Humans are lucky to have canines, not the other way round. Period.
One of the sweetest bonuses about driving a delivery truck is the adorable pets you get to see on your runs, although you may encounter some not-so-friendly ones occasionally. However, truck drivers sometimes stop a couple of minutes of play with an eager pet, and we love to see it!
A driver for the United Parcel Service (UPS), Sean McCarren, has been the recipient of such enviable pet love for the 17 years he’s been with the company. He started posting photos of the animals he encounters on his personal Facebook page, but people always went so crazy over the adorable pictures that he decided to make its own page. This way, he could create a centralized platform for other delivery drivers to share photos of their own canine encounters.
The UPS Dogs page has become a nation-wide network where truck drivers share the cute furry faces that make their runs a lot more enjoyable.
“We have about 30 drivers that post on a regular basis,” Sean McCarren, who created the Facebook group seven years ago, told Insider. [1] “Dogs are really important to people’s families, they are like their son or daughter, so you try to talk to them and treat them as such.”
So much dog love everywhere
The UPS Dogs Facebook page now has over 1.8 million active followers who can’t get enough of the drivers’ pictures. The page is evidence of just how much people need to see the healing beauty of unrestrained human-canine relationships. Although it’s less updated than Facebook, UPS Dogs also has an Instagram account with over 658K followers.
McCarren told Insider that he had to get someone to help him manage the page because, in his words, “it’s like having a full-time job.” The page gets about 20 to 30 submissions per day and McCarren often schedules them to go up in 2-hour intervals.
Holiday periods are often the busiest for delivery guys, which means they get to interact with more happy dogs. In December last year, they received so many submissions that the page had posts scheduled till February. A lot of the drivers become very friendly with the dogs of their regular clients, often posting so many pictures of these dogs that the page’s fans would eventually know each dog by name.
The drivers are so dedicated to their clients’ pets that most of them keep boxes of treats in their trucks, which comes in handy when a large pack of dogs with sweet faces hikes up to your door.
“What’s funny is — ask any delivery driver and they will tell you — dogs just jump up into the vehicle, wanting a biscuit,” McCarren told Insider. “Sometimes I’ll go through a couple of boxes of treats a week.”
People turn in pictures from all over the world
Just like football and music, dogs bring the world together. McCarren said the page’s wings have spread beyond the U.S. and they get tons of submissions from other drivers around the world.
“It’s pure,” McCarren said. “I mean, who doesn’t love dogs?“
One UPS driver got lucky and was greeted with a bathtub fill of the cutest brown puppies ever, and I just can’t get enough of this one.
The dogs always take an immediate liking to the drivers, and some of the disadvantaged ones find their forever homes with the drivers. These spontaneous connections are more powerful than people can imagine.
“Leo would always start barking as I pulled into the condo complex,” a driver named Katie Newhouser wrote on the page. “He would always jump into my truck when I stopped. His owner passed away and now he lives with me.”
The UPS office is also aware of the page and they approve of their employees’ friendly connections with clients and their pets.
“Yes, we are aware of that site,” a UPS spokesperson told BuzzFeed. “It’s a good example of the relationships our employees build with their customers, two- or four-legged.”
Adore this lovely photo of Nikita waiting for the delivery guy under the rain.
Image Credits: UPS Dogs/Facebook