🐕 Tuna
Chihuahua-dachshund mix · Los Angeles, California - adopted at a farmers' market by Courtney Dasher
Lives in The Meme House
Tuna was found abandoned near San Diego and adopted at roughly four months old at a Los Angeles farmers' market by Courtney Dasher, who started his Instagram on 22 November 2011. A pronounced overbite and a recessed lower jaw give him a permanent lopsided grin. On 25 September 2013 a Redditor paired his face with a receipt on which a barista had written 'Phteven' instead of 'Stephen', captioned 'Phteven? Is that you Phteven?', and the post pulled 11,200 upvotes in two months. The nickname stuck for over a decade.
What they do
Tips his head slowly to one side, front teeth out over his lower lip, ears swinging with the movement - the head-tilt grin that made the meme..
A small dog entirely aware his face is funny; leans into every camera and never quite closes his mouth.
Lore
- ★The 'Phteven' receipt was originally nothing to do with him - a Redditor matched the two images on 25 September 2013.
- ★His Instagram passed 600,000 followers within two years of launching and sits near 1.8 million.
- ★He appeared on NBC's Today show in January 2013.
- ★His 2015 book was titled 'Tuna Melts My Heart: The Underdog With The Overbite'.
Helping the real one
No verified way to support this animal exists.
We will not invent one.
His Instagram bio points at a merchandise shop. That is a shop, not a donation route, and I found no separate donate page to verify.
Where this comes from
Every link here was checked twice before it was published. If one is dead or wrong, tell us.