Tucker Budzyn, the Michigan-based golden retriever who became one of the internet’s biggest canine stars, has died after a short battle with cancer. He was 8.
Tucker’s owner, Courtney Budzyn, revealed that her beloved pooch died on Wednesday — less than a week after she shared he had been diagnosed with lymphoma.
“I thought that was the last sad video I was gonna make, but it’s not … Tucker’s gone,” Budzyn said Saturday in a tearful Instagram video as she held a box that appeared to contain his ashes.
“Tucker passed away Wednesday, unexpectedly. He was doing really with treatment, but we didn’t know he had lymphoma in his intestines. Since the chemo was working so good and he was going into remission, it left a hole in his intestine where the cancer was, and he got an infection that seemed to hit him overnight.”
Budzyn publicly announced Tucker’s cancer diagnosis on Aug. 30, two weeks after she learned of the news from veterinarians. Tucker was said to be in “partial remission” after one week of treatment and could have had another one to three years based on his treatment plan.
However, Tucker’s condition suddenly worsened Wednesday morning, prompting Budzyn to take him to the vet, where he was given antibiotics and fluids, but complications from the cancer became too much.
“His temperature kept rising, and there was nothing — nothing was changing it. We had to let him go. Tucker, I love you so much,” Budzyn said.
“There’s nothing in this world that I wouldn’t have done for him … It feels like I lost a body part.”
Budzyn, who adopted Tucker in 2018, initially considered simply posting a photo of Tucker to announce his death but decided to explain what had happened to the millions of people who had followed him for years.
“I’m so sorry, guys. I know he was yours, too,” she said. “The past three weeks have been the time of his life. We went to the park several times and he peed on every single tree he could. He went swimming a couple of times. His first jump in the pool both times were so powerful and strong.
“He got to wrestle (his son) Todd in the backyard. He got to “roob” in the grass and feel the breeze through his fur. He got to eat chicken every single morning and night because I had to give him his medicine and he was so excited about it. I got to take him rollerblading one last time. He literally saved my life.”
The golden retriever soared to internet stardom, tallying 27.1 million followers across social media, including 11.8m on TikTok, 5.9m on YouTube, 4.9m on Facebook, 4.4m on Instagram and roughly 70,000 on X.
Budzyn created Tucker’s Instagram page in June 2018, the day she brought him home as an 8-week-old puppy, and he soon went viral for clips of him pawing at an ice cube and playing with a black plastic hair clip.
As Tucker captured the hearts of millions across the internet, Budzyn and her husband, Mike, quit their jobs as a house cleaner and civil engineer to manage Tucker and his son Todd’s online presence.
“A YouTube-paid post can be anywhere from $40,000 to $60,000 for a 30-minute pre-roll,” Budzyn told The Post in 2023. “Instagram, we make about $20,000 for anywhere from three to eight stories.”
Budzyn said Saturday that she plans to keep moving forward after Tucker’s death.
“I feel like I owe it to him to move forward and to heal,” she added.
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