神烦狗

Doge is a meme which became popular late in 2013. As with all memes， the concept is simple and a bit silly. It involves superimposing7） broken English over pictures of Shiba Inus8）. It doesnt make much sense， but it doesnt have to.

The unintended face of doge is a Shiba Inu called Kabosu， an adopted rescued dog. Her owner Atsuko Sato is a teacher in Japan who writes a hugely popular blog about her pets.

Kabosu， thought to be seven to eight years old， was abandoned along with several other dogs after an unscrupulous9） breeder went bankrupt. Most of the dogs were put down10）. Luckily for Kabosu， she was adopted by Sato in November 2008.

The 51-year-old kindergarten teacher often posts pictures of her pets on her blog and its Facebook page， but had no idea of Kabosus unexpected Internet fame until a fellow blogger alerted her in August 2013. And at first， she was a little afraid.

She said： "I was stunned."

"A photo from one of my blogs had wandered off by itself. It was more like a feeling of how could something like this have even happened？ My thoughts werent at all that the meme was cute or interesting."

"If Im being honest， I felt frightened by the net."

But over time， Sato has come to see the meme as something more positive， as the number of Facebook fans from overseas increase and she gets more and more comments from people now inspired to adopt their own rescue dog.

"Its not just comments saying Kabosu is so cute！， but also things like I was worried about getting a rescue dog， but since I saw Kabosus happy-looking face， Ive started to want a dog from similar circumstances for myself."

"The thought I most want to convey on my blog is that rescue dogs can be happy， and can become an important part of your family. But Im very happy that its not been just in Japan， but even overseas too."

"All of that is thanks to the meme. I am very grateful."

As with most popular things on the internet， Sato says she still cant understand how it all happened.

"I wasnt sure about posting that picture to the blog because I thought she didnt look cute in the picture，" she joked.

"But its a good thing I did post it after all！"