NASCAR Pets

NASCAR PETS1821_Nascar_HalfAd_540007.indd 1 7/15/22 4:31 PM

BY JARED TURNER

world for drivers to be dog parents. For Cup Series driver Chris Buescher, however, one dog just isn’t enough.

He and his wife, Emma, are the proud parents of three canines: an 8-yearold Golden Retriever named Cooper, a 7-year-old Labrador mix named Addi and a 4-year-old Terrier/Mini Poodle mix named Dozer.

The Bueschers also have a 6-year-old, 15-pound cat named Badin after Badin Lake in North Carolina, where Emma grew up. In addition to the animals that Chris and Emma own and raise together, Emma has fostered several hundred rescue animals over the past decade.

“Both of us had dogs growing up,” said Chris, driver of the No. 17 Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing Ford. “She had Labs growing up, and my family had Great Pyrenees and another mutt. We’ve always had dogs. We had always been limited to smaller numbers by our more reasonable parents. Emma and I kind of just went off the deep end. Our numbers are probably a bit too high, but we still enjoy it.” Thankfully, the Bueschers’ animals for the most part manage to coexist peacefully. “We have a small farm now, so they have plenty of room to run and swim,” Chris said. “We’ve got a pond out front. So they get to be very active and very free for a lot of the day. That’s something that’s been really nice as we’ve been able to get more established on the farm, and out of the neighborhood we were in not too many years ago. With that has come more farm animals.”

And more responsibilities, which often preclude Emma from traveling with Chris to his NASCAR events.

“It is a big time commitment, and it is hard to move around, with the animals always needing care,” Chris said. “Some of our farm animals you can leave unattended for a couple days at a time, but we don’t have that option with the dogs.”