It often feels like the internet can be both a great and terrible place but one of the best parts of the internet, in my opinion, is the love for and language about dogs. Over the years, dogs have been claiming their own corner of the internet, with cute videos of puppies learning to swim or pitbulls wearing flower crowns. And WeRateDogs’ rise in popularity, the internet’s language for dogs has been growing and evolving over the years! Here are some common internet slang for dogs:
Doggos
Doggos are simply just dogs. There are good doggos and great doggos and there are no bad doggos! This term didn’t originate online actually and has a history in 19th century slang and literature. It used to be used in the phrase ‘to lie doggo’, meaning to fly under the radar like a sleeping dog. Over time, it became synonymous for dog. And others have credited Australians with their love of slang and nicknames for the current term’s popularity.
Doge
Okay so ‘doge’ has been a popular internet meme for about five years now and usually is a photo of a Shiba Inu dog with multicolored text in broken English and a Comic Sans font. Usually, the text at the foreground is a few different two word phrases with modifiers like ‘so’, ‘such’, ‘many’, ‘much’, and ‘very’ used frequently. But like any internet meme, there are many different variations of the ‘doge’ meme!
Puppers
Puppers, as you can imagine, are puppies. Puppers can be doggos but doggos aren’t puppers.
Mlem/Blep/Blop
These terms are similar but have some slight differences. A mlem refers to when a dog or cat licks its nose/snout while a blep or a blop is when a pet has their tongue hanging out of their mouth, whether that’s only slightly or all the way! As far as I can tell, bleps are usually associated with cats while blops are usually associated with dogs but dogs can blep and cats can blop.
Both mlems and bleps are usually pretty normal behaviors for cats and dogs but if your pet seems to let their tongue hang out for frequent and long periods of time and they can’t seem to pull it back in their mouth, it might be an indication of ‘Hanging Tongue Syndrome’. This syndrome should only be a concern if your dog can’t seem to pull their tongue into their mouth at will because having their tongue hang out for some time is also an indication that they’re warm (and trying to cool off by panting) or relaxed!
Boop
So many people probably already know this one but ‘boop’ is the noise you make when you touch someone’s nose! You can boop anyone’s nose: your friends (if they’re up for it), your dog, your cat, etc. The Instagram account (and accompanying hashtag) BoopMyNose is filled with photos and videos of dogs and cats you can boop!
Honorable mentions and visual guides
- Bork/boof: referring to the different noises that dogs of different sizes make. Large breeds tend to boof instead of bark.
- Doing me a frighten: so this usually refers to a photo of two dogs, one is usually barking and the other is reacting, with the phrase ‘doing me a frighten’ is usually set over the dog that’s reacting.
- Floofs/fluffers/boofers/woofers/pupperinos: all words that refer to dogs
- Oh h*ck/heckin’: for some reason, the Internet is pretty PG when it comes to dogs and rarely swears! Usually, big accounts like WeRateDogs will use ‘h*ck’ (and variations of that).
- A Visual Guide to DoggoLingo by Alyssa Brewer, PetBusiness
All these dog (and cat!) terms as we know them now come with from a combination of our love for our four legged friends and the ever changing internet culture and language. The Internet is an ever changing place but its love for cats and dogs will always be there. I’m looking forward to seeing all the new phrases and words that will be coming out in the future!
