Puttin' on the Dog: Meet Rufio, the Pooch Who Loves Playing Dress-Up

There’s a celebrity who’s been hitting Downers Grove's Friday night car shows.

People know him by name, whisper in slightly reverent voices when he's around, and vie to have their photos taken with him.

He’s not a politician or a movie star, not an entertainer in the traditional sense of the word. But the icon, typically dressed in dramatic costumes, is a publicity hound in the truest sense of the word.

Rufio Ricardo Dunlap, a 145-pound-and-growing Neapolitan mastiff from Plainfield, causes an uproar wherever he goes. 

“He’s a big drooly mass of wrinkles,” said owner and “mother” Kathy Dunlap. "We went to a dog show and fell in love with the breed. ... I like unusual things and he is a very unusual dog.” 

Dunlap and husband Rick did not buy Rufio to show or to breed, she said. “We just wanted him as a pet.”

She soon discovered that not did people love to snap his picture, he loved to pose.

“He stays really still. Just the tip of his tail moves,” she said.

Dunlap first dressed him in costume -- a pirate outfit -- for a canine boat cruise when he was a “tiny” puppy weighing in at just 24 pounds.

Subsequently, she entered him in Hallmark greeting card contests and he was selected for two. The cards are carried on hallmark.com and will be in stores in the future.

“I enter him in every costume I can,” she said.

Proceeds from Rufio’s winnings are used to support animal rescue organizations.

Additionally, the Dunlaps design, print and market their own line of greeting cards and T-shirts of Rufio. He’s been featured in newspaper articles and has appeared on television.

“We’re now working to get him into print work and commercials," Dunlap said. "We’re trying to find an agent.”

Rufio has a wardrobe that would make a fashionista envious, with more than 30 costumes.

 “I make most of his clothes and alter human things to fit him," Dunlap said. "He wore my husband’s $800 suit but he’s too big in the chest now.”

Rufio is especially fond of hats, Dunlap said.

"We put them on him and he stops and looks at us, like he’s saying, ‘Look how handsome I am.’ He just loves hats,” Dunlap noted.

While Rufio hangs around the house naked, he goes out in public dressed to the nines. Dunlap said Rufio is “protective, loving, lazy and well-mannered. He’s very drooling.”

Rufio recently learned he was able to swim:

 “I keep catching him in the pool swimming laps. He doesn’t know that he’s a dog.”

She sleeps with Rufio in a downstairs bedroom while his “sister,” a Harlequin Great Dane named Sugar Joy, sleeps with her husband upstairs.

“There’s not room for all four of us in one bed,” Dunlap said. “Rufio snores like a freight train. It irritates my husband that I only think snoring is cute when Rufio does it.”

Rufio’s celebrity has taken off, she said.

“People yell his name out their car windows," Rufio said. "Kids love him. Last week a little kid tried to ride him. He just loves kids.

“We bought a pet and now have a celebrity.”

For additional information, visit www.rufiosrumblings.com. Rufio will be appearing at the Romeoville Humane Society's Aug. 21 charity motorcycle run, which departs at 11 a.m. from Stella's Grill, 402 N. Weber Road.