I’ll explain. I am the Social Community Editor at BarkPost, which basically means I creep on dogs on Instagram and turn them into memes. Part of my job is finding the derpiest dinguses for Dingus Of The Week, a series I started after becoming fascinated with a particular breed of dog, the dingus.
Outside of BarkPost, I am a comedian living in NYC with a minor, OK, major case of social anxiety. I feel awkward. A lot. I overthink things. I overanalyze. I basically feel like this a lot of the time…
This is why I love dinguses. I just relate to them, on so many levels. As you can imagine, after interviewing their humans and thoroughly scrolling through their accounts, I’m just like, I WANT TO MEET THIS DOG. I realize that sounds crazy. But like, who wouldn’t want to hang out with this?
Cut to last week when I took a vacation to visit my college friends in LA for my birthday. I was doing some of my usual scrolling on IG when I stumbled upon a picture of one of my favorite dinguses, Emma, a very derpy dachshund. If you follow us on Instagram you may recognize her from our dingus definition.
Or post-Coachella.
I saw that she posted a photo at The Grove in Los Angeles, which was around the corner from where I was staying.
I had no choice but to seize this opportunity. Can you really blame me? LOOK AT HER.
So I did what any crazy dog lady who had been away from dogs for a grueling 3-day period of dog deprivation would do, and I reached out to her mom very casually and said “HELLO CAN I PLEASE PET YOUR DOG?!” Jk. I was much smoother than that. To my relief, she was more than happy to indulge my crazy dog lady, because she gets it.
We decided to meet at 6 p.m. at The Grove. I was a little nervous. I had never been on a dog date before. So many questions went through my mind, like, “What should I wear? Will Emma like me? Do I shake her paw? Do I hug her? What if she just doesn’t feel any chemistry with me and she’s just like, ‘Mom can we go home who is this woman?’ Should I bring treats? No, that seems too presumptuous. Plus, I want her to like me for me.”
And then I saw her derpy sausage body approaching. “Play it cool, Katie. You don’t want to come on too strong.” Because what was really going through my mind was, “I HAVE BEEN DREAMING OF MEETING YOU SINCE I SCROLLED 83 WEEKS DEEP IN YOUR INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT.”
What I said was, “Hi Emma! Nice to meet you!”
Luckily, my enthusiasm and in-depth knowledge of her entire existence on Instagram did not freak her out. And we totes hit it off. She went straight in for the kiss.
Her mom, Shuan, was as cool as she seemed on Instagram. And I’m happy to report that Emma was just as derpy as I imagined her to be. Her giant ears and tiny little raptor arms lived up to the buildup.
Was there part of me that felt a little weird reaching out to an Instagram dog to meet in real life? A little bit. But then I realized, (there’s a cheesy sentence coming up so just mentally prepare yourself), that’s what the BarkBox community is all about. We’re a giant group of crazy dog people who love our dogs and love people who love dogs just as much as we do.
I’ll leave you with this picture. I highly suggest you follow Emma and Shuan on Instagram.
