The 'Most Famous Dog' in America Is Dead at 18

You know Marnie, the lovable Shih Tzu on Instagram with a curious face and wagging tongue? Well she died this week at 18, and TMZ reports that her LA owner has posted a touching message online. "It is with much grief I share the news that Marnie passed away painlessly & peacefully in my home on Thursday afternoon at the age of 18," writes Shirley Braha on Instagram. "Her comfort had been notably declining over over the past few days with little hope for improvement and she let me know she had had enough. She enjoyed her chicken until the very end." Marnie had an impressive following of 1.8 million Instagram followers and posed with many celebs throughout the years, including Ed Sheeran, Betty White, Taylor Swift, Usher, and Selena Gomez.

Braha first saw Marnie in a Connecticut shelter where the pup had been named "Stinky" over her foul smell, the New York Times reports. But Braha loved her bemused "What the heck am I doing here?" look, took her home to New York, and got her surgery for her 14 bad teeth. The dog's long, lolling tongue was not a health issue, Braha says—it was just really long. When MTV laid Braha off in 2014, she began posting Instagram pics of Marnie and lo and behold, she became what the New Yorker called "the most famous dog on Instagram." The pair later moved to California when Marnie struggled with New York winters. "Our relationship was that of two best friends," Braha says. "When she became more geriatric, I was more of a caretaker." Now, she adds, she has "the whole world available to mourn with me." (More dogs stories.)