Owner of Schoep, made famous by Lake Superior photo, reflects back on 2013

This interview is part of a year-end series with people in the region that made news in 2013.

John Unger of Bayfield, Wis., is best known for being Schoep's human. The two first made news in 2012 when a photo of the two went viral and touched millions.

That photo, taken in July 2012, showed a pony-tailed Unger in the middle of a calm swim in Lake Superior with his German shepherd mix, Schoep, who had fallen asleep in Unger's arms.

The two had taken the swim for years and it helped ease the dog's arthritis. It wasn't until a photographer in Bayfield snapped the photo that the rest of us were let in on the story. Unger had wanted the photo taken because he wasn't sure how much longer his ailing dog would live.

The donations that poured in immediately after that photo went viral helped pay for more treatments for the ailing Schoep. The result: Scheop lived longer than expected, though the pooch did die this year on July 18, at the age of 20.

Unger joins The Daily Circuit to talk about how he's doing five months after his best friend's death.