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How dapper dog Bodhi makes $15,000 a month as the Menswear Dog

There’s a reason why Bodhi, the Menswear Dog, dresses in designer duds all the time. He can afford them.The dapper Shiba Inu, whose stylish photos took the Internet by storm last year, pulls in up to $15,000 a month, according to a Fast Company interview with Bodhi’s owners, Yena Kim and David Fung. “Between the photo contracts, guest appearances and sponsored posts on Tumblr and Instagram,
Mensweardog
Mensweardog / Instagram

There’s a reason why Bodhi, the Menswear Dog, dresses in designer duds all the time. He can afford them.

The dapper Shiba Inu, whose stylish photos took the Internet by storm last year, pulls in up to $15,000 a month, according to a Fast Company interview with Bodhi’s owners, Yena Kim and David Fung.

“Between the photo contracts, guest appearances and sponsored posts on Tumblr and Instagram, a good month for Menswear Dog earns the couple somewhere in the ballpark of $15,000,” the author of the article wrote. “When I asked what a bad month looks like, Fung and Kim say they haven’t seen less than $10,000 in ‘quite some time.’”

Not bad for an Internet meme that started as 'a gag' they posted to Facebook after dressing their dog up and having him strike modeling poses straight out of the movie “Zoolander.”

Bodhi's salary was enough to prompt his owners to quit their full-time jobs in April 2013.

“When I left my job, everyone in my immediate office knew [what was going on], but I just told HR I was starting a company,” Kim said. “I didn’t want to be like, ‘I’m leaving you guys to dress up my dog.’”

Not surprisingly, Menswear Dog was approached by Ben Lashes, the agent who helped turn Grumpy Cat from the feline with millions of Facebook followers into one with book and movie deals to match. Grumpy Cat also has a line of coffee and sells other merchandise on its website.

Grumpy Cat
Grumpy CatToday

But Kim said Lashes would have cost too much in more ways than one.

“He reached out to us early on, but he wanted to take 20 percent," she told Fast Company. "It meant he would take care of the creative aspects, which we weren’t ready to give up.”