Very saved

The furry face that launched a thousand quips nearly never made it to the web. Sato adopted Kabosu from an animal shelter in November, 2008, saving her from certain death. "She was a pedigreed dog from a puppy mill, and when the puppy mill closed down, she was abandoned along with 19 other Shiba dogs," the teacher explained. "Some of them were adopted, but the rest of them were killed."

A volunteer at the shelter gave the dog her name, a type of Japanese citrus. "Her face is very round just like kabosu [fruit]," Sato said. "I thought the name was perfect, so I kept it."

"Her face is very round just like kabosu."

Half a world away in California, Jonathan Fleming, whose Shiba Inu Suki has also been co-opted into the doge meme, reflects on the breed’s strong personalities. Shibas "tend to be very intelligent, aggressive, and aloof to other dogs," he said. "They’re considered a primitive breed, almost like wild animals." Shibas date back to the third century BCE when they were bred to flush game from bushes. "I think their temperament fits Japanese people," Sato said. "They are very soboku," or, "beautiful in a way that is natural, not contrived or artificial," according to Laura Payton’s Shiba Inus: A Complete Owners Manual.

On February 23rd, 2010, before the meme had crystallized, Sato posted the fateful photo of Kabosu to her blog. The site is stocked with pictures of the Shiba Inu plus Sato’s two cats, Tsutsuji and Ginnan, frolicking with the teacher and her husband in and around their apartment 25 miles outside of Tokyo. "She was not loved when she was little, so I want to shower her with love as a member of my family," Sato said.

"Kabosu is very different from the typical temperament of Shiba," Sato explained. "She’s very gentle and calm; she loves being photographed." The hundreds of photos on the blog have paid off, and not just on Reddit. Sato started her blog in June, 2009, aiming to raise awareness about the dangers of puppy mills and adopted pets, joining a network of pet blogs where Kabosu quickly found an audience. The site is now the fourth most popular pet blog in Japan, getting around 75,000 hits a month, according to With, the country’s largest blog-ranking website.

"Since she’s a kindergarten teacher, her sentences are very warm, soft, and friendly," says Sarana Iwao, a Japanese fan of the blog and fellow Shiba owner, explaining Sato’s appeal. "She also lives a very normal Japanese woman’s life. She works full time, has two sons, and a husband who comes back late at night from work. A lot of people feel close to them."

But Kabosu and Sato’s celebrity in Japan, where they are known as real beings with lives and personalities, is quite unlike the flat anonymity of doge fame: in the Western world, Kabosu the dog is secondary to Kabosu the meme.