Maxine the Dog turns heads with her fluffy appearance and playful personality
This doggy influencer is hard to miss, carried around the city in her iconic doggy backpack
Video Transcript
RYAN REISBERG: It's like every time I step outside of the door with this dog in a backpack, somebody's day is made. It inspires me to see what she inspires in other people. I'm Bryan. Most people know me as Maxine's dad. And this little girl is Maxine.
Maxine is what's called a fluffy. That's the actual name for dogs that just happened to be born with a rare gene mutation resulting in one long coat of fur, as opposed to two short coats, which is the breeding standard for corgis. Maxine's like a living cartoon character. I mean, obviously, she's the best dog ever. She's very goofy and playful. She loves meeting people. She's very calm in her backpack. When she's on the ground, she's crazy. Corgis are very high energy.
My wife and I have been together since 2009. And we'd always loved corgis. Actually, we decided to pull the trigger right after we got married. So Maxine was actually our wedding present to each other. We made an Instagram in the beginning of 2016 just as a creative outlet.
This is back when Instagram was a photo sharing app. She was just a really fun muse. So I would take pictures of her, and they would be really high quality photos. It was something that I'd never seen on Instagram, people photographing pets in a really like cinematic way, or making little short films.
- This is Maxine. Maxine enjoys nappies, rubbies, and all the Cheerios she can fit in her mouth.
RYAN REISBERG: I'd bring her everywhere with me. So it was a lot of content. And when we had some fun, we put it online, and people loved it. A lot of what we do now is focused on her in the backpack. It's what we're known for. It's kind of our niche. I carried her in a dog backpack for probably six years. Nobody in the world has carried their dog in a backpack more than me. And we were getting messages, like hundreds, every day of people who wanted to know what backpack we used and how they could carry their dog in a backpack.
The problem was, the product I used, I didn't like it. We spent years designing a safer, better-built backpack. We launched it on her birthday, which was December 15, 2021. Much to my surprise, we sold out in four minutes. We knew there was a demand, but didn't know there was that much of a demand. I think the goal now is to lead a tectonic shift in the pet industry.
It's cool to be able to take something that has been so fun and weird and nonsensical, like making videos with your dog, and turn it into something that actually amounts to something, other than, of course, the joy that people get from her. I get to see the best of humanity because whenever I walk down the street, whenever I'm on the subway, when they see a dog in a backpack, they just light up. They're the most heartwarming interactions. It's all cool and surreal. I never thought I'd be in this position.
