Dog Reddit Is the Purest Corner of the Internet 🐶 Off The Leash

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The internet can be a dark place. You don’t need us to tell you that. So it’s important to find points of light within the dank depths of strangers endlessly yelling at each. Luckily, pure joy can be found in unexpected spaces. Or, more specifically, one of the best parts of the internet can be buried in one of the worst–Reddit.

Reddit is a polarising place: part community message board, part fan and hobbyist oasis, part radicalising cesspool. But Dog Reddit is a very different story.

It’s hard to fully communicate the breadth and intrigue of the dog subreddit. You really just need to follow us in spending months of your life trawling through it constantly (zero regrets). We first started visiting Dog Reddit to scope out article ideas. But what began as a professional preoccupation quickly evolved into a daily act of (we’ll say it) self care.

Dog Reddit is a depository for the best parts of the internet–and if we may be so bold–humanity. It’s sweet, weird, funny, enthralling, kind, and above all, completely dedicated to the well-being of animals. But amid all that fee-good chaos most posts still tend to call into one of the below categories. Check them out and then enjoy this heady world for yourself.

Made me smile during a traffic back up from aww

Tender Expressions of Pure Emotion

Dog Reddit is an emotional place. Which isn’t really surprising considering how much people adore their pets. One of the sweetest presentations of this is users literally posting passionate love letters to their dogs. These vents don’t pretend to offer anything other than joyful expressions of enthusiasm and adoration. You’d think reading about a stranger’s connection to a dog you’ll never meet would get boring, but we can assure you it does not.

The inverse of this are the regular, and very moving, digital eulogies that owners post for pets who have passed. We’ve written before about how hard it can be to find a place for your grief when a beloved dog dies. And how isolating it can feel when people around you don’t take the loss seriously. Dog Reddit may be the perfect balm for that loneliness. Here people from all over the world are more than happy to gather, listen, commiserate, and share with no judgement or agenda.

This is Billie. She never understood why I had a set of keys to bring in the car and she didn’t. I got her a set of her own and now she insists on bringing them anytime we go for a drive! from aww

Non-aggressive Advice

As most dog owners can tell you, the wider dog internet can be a pretty judgemental place. Asking the most innocuous questions about a pet’s health or behaviour can get you shouted off many other websites, groups, or pages. But surprising, considering the rest of Reddit isn’t generally known for tolerance, people on Dog Reddit have a lot of time to address each other’s queries. Dog owners asking about health issues are generally, and responsibly, directed to call their vets. While behavioural questions receive detailed, empathetic responses that see other readers sharing what’s worked in their own lives.

Added bonus, sometimes this all spins out into niche dog mysteries that see hundreds of dog lovers working together to detangle unusual pet behaviors or issues

Additionally, with everyone adjusting to social isolation, Redditors have stepped up to provide an extra layer of guidance and support for owners adjusting to working from home and managing new emotions.

Dog getting excited over some BBQ’d chicken from aww

What Breed Is This?

While Dog Reddit is a varied and eclectic place, I’d still say 25% of it is people asking for help identifying their dog’s breed. Sure that doesn’t sound too exciting, but oh boy, trust us, you can get into it. There’s something strangely enthralling about working with people from all over the globe to try solve these breed mysteries. Think of it like a very amateur, crowd-sourced version of Who Do You Think You Are?

Full-Blown (Charming) Weirdness

This being Reddit, there is still a high concentration of very weird content. But with dogs as the focus, it’s all deeply charming. Favourite topics include readers sharing their pet’s kooky quirks and unexpected tricks. But some recent stand outs have also included: sheep dogs “working from home”, golden retrievers who need their own set of keys, and staffies losing it over BBQ chicken.

For more feelgood content, check out:

A Very Nice Article of Dog Memes

Special Needs Pets Represent the Best of Humanity

The Best Dog Movies and TV Shows To Stream Right Now

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