The I'd Rather Be With Your Dog Instagram is not just a meme page for dog lovers. It's also a lifestyle brand created by CEO Doug Ratner. He credits its creation to his pooch, Oggy. "I was sitting at the computer with my guitar in my lap," Ratner writes on the I'd Rather Be With My Dog website.
"I was fixated on a particular riff that I couldn't put any words to and needless to say I was frustrated. But lo and behold, sitting right next to me was my faithful Oggy, just staring at me with his big loving eyes, and instantly I came up with 'I'd rather be with my dogs, than be with you.'"
Today, I'd Rather Be With My Dog sells merchandise for pet owners, as well as for their four-legged best friends. They've got apparel for all pet lovers to express their devotion and love.
What's more, they're all about helping dogs in need. "We donate to different causes weekly, everything from rescues, to canine cancer awareness, or military dogs overseas who need our help," they claim on their website. I think the memes just got way more wholesome!
Dogs in memes often act crazy and humanlike – and that's one reason people love them so much. We decided to ask an animal behaviorist, Karen Wild, whether our interpretations of dogs being "just like us" are true or just figments of our imagination. She says it's most likely both. "It can be a mixture of accurate behavior observation and inaccurate interpretation," the animal behaviorist says.
"In other words, memes usually represent a snapshot moment we might recognize, such as an emotion in a dog's face, but they say the reason for that emotion could be something only humans would do or think," Karen Wild explains. "It is very common for people to get it wrong, which is sometimes why dogs end up biting defensively."
As much as we'd like to read the behaviors of our dog positively, our interpretations when they're being particularly meme-able can actually be the opposite. "Body signals in dogs can be due to negative emotions as well as positive ones, and often a mixture of these," Wild goes on. "If a dog is racing around, often called 'zoomies,' for example, this can sometimes be a sign of overwhelm rather than happy excitement."
One of Karen's missions is to educate owners to differentiate between playful behaviors and signs of potential behavioral issues. In fact, a dog acting quirky isn't always as cute as we might think. "People need to learn the differences to prevent our lovely dogs [from] becoming stressed, unhappy, and defensive."
