What breed of dog is featured in the Doge meme?

The dog featured in the Doge meme is a Shiba Inu.

The original Doge image centers on Kabosu, a female Shiba Inu owned by Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato. Sato adopted Kabosu in 2008 after the closure of a puppy mill sent her to an animal shelter. The dog’s alert expression and sideways glance became the visual foundation for the meme, although later Doge images have used other Shiba Inus as well.

Kabosu first appeared in photographs on Sato’s blog in 2010. Images of her were later reposted and edited with colorful Comic Sans captions expressing deliberately broken English, such as exaggerated thoughts and phrases beginning with “such” or “very.” The word “Doge” itself had earlier internet usage, but the Shiba Inu image made the term globally recognizable around 2013.

Doge also inspired Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency launched in December 2013 whose logo uses Kabosu’s likeness. The breed is sometimes confused with the Akita because both are Japanese spitz-type dogs, but Shiba Inu are generally smaller. Kabosu died on May 24, 2024, at age 18, after becoming one of the internet’s best-known animals.