As examples of oppressive Internet cuteness go, the D.P. is in the upper stratospheric reaches. People send in photos of their puppies, accompanied by descriptions that are often in the first person, as though the dogs have composed their own dating profiles. The goal is to win a coveted “Puppy of the Day” slot on the home page, a designation that invites a trail of gushing comments on the order of “Ooh, you precious baaaby!” and “You are so furrylicious I could hug you for hours.” The site also has a category called “Grown-up Puppy of the Day.” One morning, as I looked at Rex and got the distinct feeling he didn’t have that many mornings left, I gathered up a handful of his best photos—Rex on the beach at Big Sur, Rex in the flower garden, Rex in front of the Christmas tree—and uploaded them to the Daily Puppy’s submission page, along with his (somewhat grammatically challenged) personal ad. “My name is Rex and I am a grown-up puppy … my humans say that there’s never been a dog loved as much as me.”
