Luther now lives in Ravinia Heights. Photo by Victoria Hernandez.

In 2010, then-Winnetka Heights neighbors Geoff and Rebekah Brown submitted their schnauzer mix Luther to the Advocate’s pet cover contest on a whim.

“I was like, ‘Well, I’ll just try. He’s so scrappy; he probably won’t win,’” Rebekah Brown said.

Well, that whim won. And 16 years later now living in Ravinia Heights, Luther is still kicking.

As Rebekah Brown told readers in the 2010 feature, when the family lived in Winnetka Heights, every Halloween they would serve up around 900 hotdogs to neighbors instead of sweets.

All during that 2009 Halloween, Luther followed Geoff Brown around outside. The family brought the pup in for a bath, a meal and a home for the night and after searching for the owners, no one turned up.

The Browns ended up keeping Luther for his endearing quirks, naming him after Martin Luther since Oct. 31 is also Reformation Day. 

Luther on the cover of the July 2010 print edition of the Oak Cliff Advocate.

“Typically, except for food, he will just sit like this, and he’s pretty chill,” Geoff Brown said as he was holding Luther in his lap like a baby. “People typically like his personality.”

However, there was one neighbor when they lived in Oklahoma who did not. Although hot dogs are what brought Luther into their lives, his love for them also led him to lose a leg. 

“He loves hot dogs so much that when we moved to Oklahoma, he actually stole our neighbor’s hot dogs, and she was not a very nice neighbor,” Rebekah Brown said. “She actually shot him … because he ate her hot dogs. But he survived.”

At first the family assumed an animal had gotten to him. It wasn’t until they brought Luther to the vet that they learned the true nature of his injury.

“I found out later that my neighbor had been threatening to shoot our dog, but she didn’t tell us. She told the mail person,” Rebekah Brown said. “And so, the mail person and the neighbors were really upset with her because everybody loves Luther.”

The Browns say the case is the same back in Oak Cliff today, since returning to Texas when Geoff Brown became a pastor at Grace Church of Ovilla. 

Since his feature in 2010, Luther is now mostly blind and has begun to sniff when he hears something, hardly barking except when he sees other dogs.

“Honestly, I joke about this, but I didn’t know dogs live this long,” Geoff Brown said. “Oldest dog we had growing up was maybe seven years, eight years. So it’s quite a feat.”