The Shiba Inu in the original Doge meme photo was Kabosu. Her owner, Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato, posted the famous image on her blog in 2010, years before the picture became a global meme.
Kabosu had been sent to an animal shelter after a puppy mill closed. Sato adopted her in 2008 and kept the name given by a shelter volunteer, inspired by kabosu, a Japanese citrus fruit. Sato thought the dog’s rounded face resembled the fruit.
The meme took off in 2013 when versions of Kabosu’s image appeared with colorful Comic Sans captions written in intentionally broken English, such as “much wow” and “very doge.” The format helped inspire Dogecoin, launched in December 2013, and made Kabosu one of the internet’s most recognizable animals.
Balltze and Cheems are other famous Shiba Inu meme dogs, while Suki appeared in some Doge variations. They are not the dog in the original photograph. Kabosu died at age 18 on May 24, 2024.