Dog Smothering Owner — Two-panel banner of a man on the phone with a dog, then the same dog smothering him with a pillow at night.

Dog Smothering Owner

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Published October 21, 2026

Dog Smothering Owner began as a four-panel strip by cartoonist Zach on Extra Fabulous Comics, published December 31, 2019, in which a pet dog overhears his owner planning a vasectomy and kills him with a pillow that night. Within hours the comic hit Reddit's r/funny for over 131,000 upvotes, and by February 2020 users were pasting their own dialogue into the owner's speech bubbles across r/HistoryMemes and the anti-meme sub r/bonehurtingjuice.

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Overview

Dog Smothering Owner relies on a strict four-panel layout. In the top three panels, a dog listens in while his owner says something awful on the phone, usually by holding an opinion or planning an act the dog finds unforgivable. The payoff panel is always identical: night falls and the dog, pillow in paws, smothers the sleeping owner. Users plug the owner's dialogue with object labeling, writing in politics, driving pet peeves, historical atrocities or minor social sins.

Zach's original punchline hinged on the owner booking a vasectomy, which the dog interprets as a personal threat after being neutered himself1. Remix templates emptied the bubbles so anyone could write their own crime4, and the comic lent itself to anti-meme reversals where the fourth panel reads as the dog gently helping his owner rest7.

Origin & Background

Platform
Extra Fabulous Comics (source) / Reddit (viral spread)
Creator
Zach
Date
2019

Cartoonist Zach, who runs Extra Fabulous Comics, posted the strip to his site on December 31, 2019, with a joke about the owner booking a vasectomy that the dog mishears as a reason for his own neutering1. Zach cross-posted the comic to r/funny the same day, where it hit over 131,000 upvotes2. Know Your Meme later catalogued the strip, noting the Extra Fabulous Facebook post picked up more than 14,000 likes alongside the Twitter upload3.

How It Spread

Later on December 31, 2019, Redditor Seedlingg stripped the dialogue bubbles blank and shared the result as a template to r/MemeEconomy, inviting other users to write their own owner crimes4. The investment-themed subreddit welcomed it as a format worth remixing, and variations started appearing across other subs within weeks.

On February 1, 2020, Imgur user Immune2Iocaine posted a version where the owner rants about left-lane drivers not understanding its purpose as a passing lane, which hit 3,035 points and over 118,000 views5. Redditor gofundmemetoday applied the format to r/HistoryMemes on February 17, 2020, with the strip upvoted close to 36,000 times6.

Anti-meme sub r/bonehurtingjuice inverted the premise on February 18, 2020, when antoniosravioliparty posted a version where the dog smothers his owner to help him sleep instead of to kill him, with the post hitting over 25,000 upvotes7.

Timeline

2019-12-31

Zach uploads the original vasectomy strip to Extra Fabulous Comics[1].

2019-12-31

Zach cross-posts the comic to r/funny, where it hits over 131,000 upvotes[2].

2019-12-31

Redditor Seedlingg posts a blank template to r/MemeEconomy, enabling remixes[4].

2020-02-01

Imgur user Immune2Iocaine shares a left-lane-driver variant that hits 3,035 points[5].

2020-02-17

Redditor gofundmemetoday posts a r/HistoryMemes variant upvoted close to 36,000 times[6].

2020-02-18

Antoniosravioliparty posts an ironic r/bonehurtingjuice version with over 25,000 upvotes[7].

How to Use This Meme

Write your own dialogue into the owner's three speech bubbles and leave the pillow panel alone. Redditor Seedlingg shared the blank template on r/MemeEconomy on December 31, 20194. Ironic versions on r/bonehurtingjuice flip the premise, writing the dog's action as kindness instead of murder7.

Frequently Asked Questions