What Happened to Kabosu, the Doge Dog?
Kabosu, the Shiba Inu whose skeptical sideways look became Doge, the defining meme of the 2010s, died on May 24, 2024. She was around 18 years old, an extraordinary age for any dog, and she passed the way every dog deserves to: quietly, at home, while her owner stroked her.
“She quietly passed away as if asleep,” wrote Atsuko Sato, the kindergarten teacher from Sakura, Japan who had shared her life since 2008.
From abandoned puppy to the face of the internet
Kabosu’s story started as badly as a dog’s story can. She was born around November 2005 at a puppy mill, and when it shut down in 2008 she was one of roughly nineteen dogs left facing euthanasia. Sato adopted her and named her after the round Japanese citrus fruit her face resembled, and began writing a gentle daily blog about her rescued dog’s second life.
On February 13, 2010, Sato posted a batch of photos from an ordinary at-home shoot. One showed Kabosu glancing sideways at the camera, paws crossed, eyebrows raised, wearing an expression of faintly judgmental calm. That photo escaped the blog, crossed the ocean, collided with Comic Sans, and by 2013 had become Doge: the “much wow” meme that dominated the internet and was later voted, in a 2019 poll, the meme of the entire decade.
Then it got stranger. In December 2013, two software engineers created Dogecoin as a joke, borrowing Kabosu’s face for the logo. The joke became a real market worth billions, championed by some of the most famous people on earth. And here is the part of the crypto chapter actually worth keeping: the early Dogecoin community used the coin the way the dog would have wanted, crowdfunding clean-water wells in Kenya, sponsoring the Jamaican bobsled team to the Olympics, and painting a NASCAR entry. In 2021 the original photo itself sold as an NFT for roughly four million dollars, making Kabosu’s sideways glance one of the most valuable photographs ever taken; Sato directed proceeds toward charity, as she had long done with Kabosu’s earnings. Through all of it the actual dog lived a completely normal, happy life in a small Japanese city, unaware she was simultaneously a meme, a currency, and an icon.
Her later years
Unlike most famous dogs, Kabosu got a long final act. She survived a serious illness in 2022 (leukemia and liver disease) that Sato openly documented, and fans worldwide followed her recovery. The Doge and crypto communities she never knew she led raised money in her honor, and a statue of her was erected in her hometown of Sakura. She spent her last years as she spent all her years: on walks with Sato, being photographed, being loved.
She died in May 2024. Her memorial service drew fans and even cryptocurrency figures to say goodbye to a dog whose photo had, without exaggeration, moved markets and defined an era of the internet.
Doge outlives Doge
The meme never really went away, and now it never will. Kabosu joins Boo, Cheems, and Gabe in the strange little pantheon of dogs the internet cannot stop loving after they are gone. This site keeps a page for all of them.
Much loved. Very missed. Wow.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Doge dog still alive?
No. Kabosu, the Shiba Inu from the Doge meme, died on May 24, 2024 at around 18 years old. She passed peacefully at home with her owner.
What happened to Kabosu?
She died of old age in May 2024, after surviving leukemia and liver disease in 2022. Her owner, Atsuko Sato, said she passed quietly as if falling asleep.
Was the Doge dog a boy or a girl?
Kabosu was a female Shiba Inu, rescued from a closing puppy mill in Japan in 2008 by kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato.
Is the Doge dog the same as Cheems?
No. Doge is Kabosu; Cheems was a different Shiba Inu named Balltze who lived in Hong Kong and died in 2023. They are often confused because both are Shibas from the same meme family.