Shiba Inu who inspired Doge meme is now seriously ill
Kabosu the Shiba Inu is one of the most famous canines in the world and it's all thanks to the Doge meme, but sadly the dog is now very ill.
If you've spent any time on the internet at all, and given that you're reading this the odds are pretty strong that you have, then you've almost certainly run into the Doge meme.
It's a picture of a dog where the animal is snapped looking really goofy in the moment, but it's become so much more than that as the internet has taken it and turned it into an incredibly popular meme.
It's basically just the image of Kabosu surrounded by broken chunks of grammatically abominable text like 'much friends, such happy, wow', you get the idea.
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Doge became so popular that it became Know Your Meme's 'top meme' of 2013, later going on to be the basis of a cryptocurrency while an NFT of the original meme sold for $4 million.
Sadly, the original Doge is in a very poor condition as the Shiba Inu is seriously ill.
Owned by Japanese teacher Atsuko Sato, the dog is now 17 years old and is sadly suffering from both chronic lymphoma leukaemia and acute cholangiohepatitis, a form of liver disease.
She took to Instagram, where she has previously shown off other images of Kabosu and commented on her dog's status as one of the most popular memes in the world, to share the news.
Updating people on the dog's health, she wrote that the Shiba Inu had 'stopped eating and drinking voluntarily' on Christmas Eve, and though the poor pooch's appetite had since returned a little bit, the condition was very serious.
In her posts on the site she shared a video of her giving the dog something to drink, and said the animal was taking antibiotics.
Sato said her beloved dog was 'in a very dangerous condition' but thanked everyone around the world for sending in their messages of support.
Plenty took to the social media site to wish Kabosu well amidst this serious sickness, with one of the messages coming from fellow meme dog Balltze, which read 'sending love and energy, my best wishes to you'.
Many more also piled in to say 'Doge feel better soon', and said they would 'pray that Doge makes a recovery'.
It seems as though people aren't ready to wave goodbye to the dog which became the source of so many memes, as someone else said 'the day Doge passes away is the day I lose it'.
Here's hoping Kabosu is able to recover from these serious illnesses as it doesn't seem like the world is ready to lose Doge.
Joe Harker